


only fools rush in

by andromeda3116



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Mutual Pining, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-10-27 17:33:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 44,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10813599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andromeda3116/pseuds/andromeda3116
Summary: "Jyn talked herself into a corner with her grandma," Han explained. "Now she needs a fake boyfriend for Christmas.""Why doesn't Cassian do it?" Luke asked, and Jyn scowled at him.[In which  Jyn, in an attempt to get her mother's overbearing, gossipy, and traditional family off her back forone freaking Christmas, conscripts Cassian to join her as her (fake) boyfriend for the whole week in England. Shamelessly, wildly, gleefully AU.]





	1. act one

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FebruarySong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FebruarySong/gifts).



> written for the "may the fourth" exchange on tumblr, for ohbeeone, who requested "fake dating/married tropes" and/or "modern aus centered around the holidays". i looked at it and went WELL THESE WILL GO TOGETHER JUST NICELY and then it promptly escaped my control and careened wildly into novella territory because _listen_ i am a sucker for both of these things. i'm planning three parts, but there's a good fifty-fifty chance that it'll expand to four, and at least a thirty percent chance it'll end up five. i have no control. i give up. i surrender myself, with delight, to the gods of alternate-universe and romantic-comedy hell. 
> 
> many thanks to mechanical-orange for beta-ing this for me!
> 
> also, it's posted a wee bit early for my timezone, but i go to work at Nope-Thirty AM and i figured a slightly early posting was better than one so late that it would likely be may fifth in your timezone before it went up. i hope you like it!

wise men say, _only fools rush in_.

.

.

Jyn was, by some unholy streak of bad luck, the only granddaughter in a veritable sea of grandsons, a situation made worse by the fact that her parents had moved nine hours’ flight away from the rest of her mother’s (rather traditional) family, so growing up and all through college, she only ever saw them once or twice a year — at which point they always wanted her to tell them “all the juicy details of your love life!”

And they never wanted to hear the truth, which was that there were never any juicy details, only bad decisions and awful exes, and as to her other accomplishments — like, _hey, I got into grad school, which I spent a whole year working myself to death to do!_ or _I’m on the shortlist for a great internship at NASA this summer! —_  they brushed off, always wanting to know if there was _a boooooooy_.

This Christmas was shaping up to be no better than the rest of them, and Jyn was just… tired. Tired of the questions and tired of the “I am more than the men in my life” conversation that she had been having for the better part of twenty-five years and tired of the “jokes” about her biological clock ticking away, and… She really just didn’t have the energy for it this year. Grad school was harder than she’d expected it to be, and her thesis was completely stalled, and she hadn’t actually gotten the internship she’d been hoping for, and with one thing and another —

“I just don’t think I can make it this year, is all,” she was saying over the phone, pouring a much-needed glass of wine.

“They’re getting old, Jyn,” her mother replied, slightly admonishing. “There won’t be many more of these Christmases, and you’ll miss them when they’re gone.”

She doubted that somewhat. “I know, but — "

“Your papa is eighty-seven years old,” she cut in. “This could easily be his last Christmas.”

“The man is a horse!” she growled. “He’s healthier than _I_ am, he’ll live to be a hundred.”

“You don’t know that,” Lyra countered, and she wondered if she knew something Jyn didn’t, or if she was just guilt-tripping her. Probably just guilt-tripping, knowing her mother. “You _never_ know that.”

She let out a long breath, then took a deep draught of her wine and bit back a sigh. “Money is tight, and it’s a long flight,” she tried, but her mother scoffed.

“I’ll buy your plane ticket,” she snapped. “You know I will. Jyn, they’ll be really hurt if you don’t come. You always complain about it, but they _do_ love you, a lot more than you know. They hate being so far from you, they wish they could be more involved in your life.”

Dammit. _Dammit_. Why did she always know which levers to pull?

“Fine,” she sighed, running a hand over her face and already planning the rant she was going to give her brother about this. “I’ll go.”

“Good,” Lyra said, with a sigh. “I’ll get four tickets, for the whole week.”

A whole week. She wasn’t sure she could stomach it.

“Thank you,” she replied instead, and because she felt obligated, “I do love them, you know that.”

“I know,” her mother said, like she believed it, at least.

.

She was already a little tipsy when she got to the bar — in a cab, because she knew herself — but whatever, it was just her usual group of friends, and they had all seen her in significantly worse states than “kind of tipsy and ranting about her asshole family”.

Jyn was the second to arrive, after her adopted brother Bodhi, who had already gotten a round corner booth for the group.

“Hey,” she said, sliding into the booth and making a courtesy glance at the menu even though she already knew what she wanted, “you spoke to Mum today?”

“Yeeeeeeah,” he replied, with a heavy sigh. “She pull the ‘you don’t know how many Christmases you have left with them’ guilt trip on you, too?”

“Ugh, yes,” she groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. “It always _works_ , too, dammit.”

“I know,” he moaned. “Look on the bright side, we’ll spend Christmas and New Years’ in England, again.”

“Whoo,” Jyn deadpanned, and then as the waitress arrived, “Sauvignon blanc, _please_.”

“Better than New Years’ in New York, honestly,” Bodhi said, with what appeared to be a game attempt to look on the bright side. “I always hear everybody complain about never being able to get around the city for the whole week.”

“You say that like I ever plan to leave my flat during that whole week.”

“I’m just saying,” he went on, sipping his beer, “we don’t have it that bad.”

“Why are you always so stupidly optimistic?” she countered, blinking rapidly in false fascination. “It’s like a curse.”

“Hey, you don’t have to be here.”

She rubbed her face, a bit angrily. “I know, I know,” she sighed, accepting her glass of wine. “A lot of people would love the chance to go to England for the week, and a lot of people are gonna be cold and hungry and we’ll be warm and fed, but… ugh, they’re just so aggressively… them.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” he muttered, raising an eyebrow. “Remember that ‘I can’t believe they took him into their lives and he ended up gay’ thing?”

“I will never forget,” she replied darkly. “Or forgive.” Bodhi shrugged, and was probably about to say something ridiculously-nice and kind-hearted, so she held up a finger. “ _You_ can forgive, if you want. I’ll hold the grudge for you. I don’t mind doing it.”

He rolled his eyes. “You need anger management.”

 _And you need to learn how to stand up for yourself_ , she thought but didn’t say, because it would have genuinely hurt him. “No, I need people to stop being assholes,” she countered instead. “And I need these _specific_ assholes to quit grilling me about my bloody love life, for once,” she added in a growl, and he made a face.

“You could always bring a fake boyfriend,” he suggested lightly.

“Literally no one will believe that,” she snapped. “And who would I bring, anyway?”

“I bet Cassian would do it,” he said. She rolled her eyes and took another drink.

“Yeah, right,” she muttered, but — it wasn’t a bad idea, taking a fake boyfriend so they’d leave her the hell alone, and Cassian had been her best friend besides Bodhi for a long time now, since her sophomore year of college. For an all-expenses-paid trip to the English countryside, he’d probably sign on.

They might actually buy it, too.

She wondered, as she spotted him walking in with Han and Leia and waved the three of them over, how drunk she’d have to be to actually suggest it to him.

.

The answer, it turned out, was “surprisingly not very” but there were mitigating circumstances.

Namely, she had fielded the usual call from her grandmother, who was “so excited” that she was coming, was she coming alone, or was she planning to bring a plus-one?

She almost said no, but the last time she’d done that it had turned into a lecture about how she shouldn’t be afraid to fall in love, they were all just dying to meet her Mr. Right, ha-ha none of us are getting any younger! And all she’d wanted was to beat her head against a wall until she blacked out.

So instead, she told them yes, for once, there _would_ be a man joining her, but they’d have to just wait until they could meet him in person.

Gran had been absolutely delighted, and the conversation had been over in record time.

She’d laid her head on the table upon hanging up, and had yet to raise it.

“You have a boyfriend?” Han asked finally, sounding aghast, and she groaned.

“No, but she wasn’t gonna leave me alone.”

“I can vouch,” Bodhi chimed in. “The last lecture on your eggs drying up lasted, what, an hour?”

“ _And a half_ ,” she groaned, picking her head up and covering her face with both hands.

“So, are you just gonna fake a nasty breakup?” Leia suggested, and — hey, that wasn’t a bad idea — Bodhi made a sound of trepidation.

“You could just bring a fake boyfriend,” he offered again. “Fewer questions, bad fake tears, and everyone asking me about how you’re doing.”

“I’ll do it,” Han said immediately, and when Leia gave him a _look_ , he shrugged. “Their family lives outside London in some, like, nineteenth-century manor. I’ll be Jyn’s fake boyfriend to go on _that_ trip.”

“What are we talking about?” Cassian asked, joining the table with her drink, and his own.

“It’s not a manor,” Jyn snapped, taking her drink.

“It’s kind of a manor,” Bodhi disagreed, and she glared at him.

“Han wants to be single, apparently,” Leia said, by way of answering Cassian’s question.

“What?” Cassian asked.

“I… told my grandmother that I’d bring a boyfriend with me to Christmas,” Jyn sighed. “It was the only way to get her to — oh shit,” she cut herself off as her phone buzzed, and three text messages came in one right after the other, from three of her cousins. One was congratulatory, one was a joke about what poor fool would date her, and one was a demand for pictures and full description so that the cousin could decide if he was worthy. Apparently gossip traveled much faster than she’d expected, or else the family was already starting to gather. She tossed the phone to Bodhi, who burst out laughing.

And then the little shit snapped a picture of Cassian.

Both of them asked, “What are you doing?” at the same time, albeit in wildly different tones — Cassian confused and a bit affronted, Jyn in absolute horror. Bodhi just grinned.

“Hey, Cassian, wanna come to England for Christmas?” he asked, grinning.

“You can say no,” Jyn said, burying her face in her hands again. “Leia had a great idea about faking a bad break-up.”

“I’ll give you pointers,” Leia drawled, and Han spluttered.

“I… can’t really afford a plane ticket,” Cassian answered carefully, but Bodhi waved it off without looking up from the no-doubt mortifying text message he was sending from her phone.

“Mum and Dad will buy. You think either of us can afford transatlantic plane tickets?”

“Wait, wait, you’re just gonna ignore my offer — " Han started, but both she and Bodhi cut him off with a simultaneous loud _yes_. “Well then why not Luke?” he grumbled, crossing his arms, but Leia scoffed.

“If either you _or_ my brother go to spend Christmas in England without me, I’m gutting _both_ of you like _fish_.”

“That’s fair,” Luke said sagely, joining the group, _finally_. “Why is this even on the table?”

“Jyn talked herself into a corner with her grandma,” Han explained. “Now she needs a fake boyfriend for Christmas.”

“Why doesn’t Cassian do it?” Luke asked, and Jyn scowled at him. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Cassian giving him an affronted look.

“I do not need a fake boyfriend,” she snapped. “I really like Leia’s idea, it buys me time. I can probably even use it over the summer, ‘oh I’m still so upset I haven’t gotten back on the dating scene’. It’s a great idea.”

“Mm, you could talk about how you were really looking forward to introducing him to the family over Christmas,” Leia offered, finishing off her beer. “You just loved him _so much_.”

“The break-up just destroyed me, Gran, I’m so sorry,” she said in a high-pitched voice, and Leia laughed.

“Okay, but I already sent Kent pictures of Cassian,” Bodhi cut in, and she rolled her eyes.

“Pictures?” Cassian repeated. “ _Plural?_ ”

“Kent thinks you’re handsome.”

“ _Give me back my phone_ ,” she snapped, reaching over the table to grab it and, after a brief fight that threatened to spill Luke’s fresh drink, succeeded. Cassian leaned over her shoulder as she checked her camera, and then when she found no pictures there (at least, of tonight), she checked the messages that Bodhi had sent to Kent. “It was just the one,” she sighed, showing it to him. He made a face. “I’m sorry.”

(Kent did, apparently, think he was handsome, though.)

“I’m not holding it against _you_ ,” he replied, shooting Bodhi a glare that he answered with a winning smile.

“Seriously, this is stupid,” she said, shoving her phone into her coat pocket and ignoring it buzzing again. “You don’t have to come, if you don’t want to.”

“You want to,” Han stage-whispered, and she glared at him. “Have you _seen_ their grandparents’ house? It’s like something out of goddamn Jane Austen.”

“Only you,” Leia sighed, burying her face in her hand, “would equate something to “goddamn” Jane Austen.”

“I _read_ ,” he countered.

“No, you saw the 2005 _Pride and Prejudice_ movie because you had a crush on Kiera Knightley.”

“And it was a _great_ movie.”

“It _was_ a good movie,” Luke agreed, and Leia made a noise of exasperation. “But Cassian might already have had plans for Christmas.” Everyone looked at him, except Leia and Han, who had begun arguing over whether liking the movie made Han the woman in their relationship. (“You’re being really traditional with these gender roles,” he grumbled, mimicking Leia’s usual arguments with airy superiority, as her jaw dropped gently open. “I’m perfectly comfortable in my masculinity, I don’t mind at all admitting that I enjoyed that movie.”)

“I don’t,” Cassian replied, somewhat distractedly, glancing at the brewing argument on the other side of the table. “Did I just hear Han Solo say the words ‘traditional gender roles’?”

“Yeah, you did,” Leia snapped. “Mister Toxic Masculinity himself.”

“I _listen_ to what you say,” Han snapped back, and Leia actually looked a bit mollified. “Jeez, if you’d rather I ignored you, I can do that, too.”

After a moment of ringing silence, in which Leia seemed to soften slowly by degrees, Jyn glanced at Cassian.

“You don’t have any Christmas plans?” she asked, studiously ignoring the (actually kind of sweet and romantic) scene beginning to unfold.

“Not really, no,” he answered, shrugging. “It’s just my sister, and she’s out in Chicago with her family.”

“What did you do last year?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Baze and Chirrut put on — their words — the “strays’ Christmas dinner”. Good cooks.”

“Yeah, it was actually really nice,” Luke chimed in, a hand over the side of his face so that he didn’t have to see his twin sister kissing her boyfriend. “I was planning to go again this year.”

“They’re doing it again?” Leia asked, pulling away from Han and looking intrigued. “I wasn’t sure if they would.”

That… actually sounded pretty nice, honestly. Baze and Chirrut were the nicest older couple (well, in their own ways; Baze was gruff and prickly but genuinely kind underneath, and Chirrut was incredibly friendly but loved to screw with people’s heads), Chinese immigrants who had come to America together under uncertain circumstances, an explanation for which had never been offered and Jyn had never asked about, and set about making themselves a comfortable little life in New York. She’d be willing to bet that the strays’ Christmas Dinner was Chirrut’s idea to start off with, but Baze had been the first to ask about what they’d make this year.

Luke and Leia were orphans practically from birth, raised by their now-dead aunt and uncle, and if Han had any family left, he was estranged from them. Cassian’s parents had died when he was young, and with Jyn and Bodhi’s relationship with their own family being so strained and distant… “strays” was a good way to describe them.

“Yeah, I asked Chirrut about it the other day,” Luke replied. “I offered to bring something, but he said they had the food covered. I’ve got presents, though.”

“That sounds a _lot_ better than our family in England,” Bodhi said slowly, making eye contact with Jyn, who sighed.

“What part of “amazing manor in the English countryside” is worse than that?” Han countered, aghast, and Jyn made a face.

“It’s hard to explain,” she muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose. “They’re all so… traditional and gossipy. I’d rather be here with you guys, honestly.”

“ _So_ gossipy,” Bodhi sighed. “And I’m pretty sure that Gran is still holding out for me to find the right woman.”

“So, here’s what you do,” Han started, leaning forward and gesticulating wildly, “you two stay here, and me and Leia go to your family manor in your place.”

“I can work with that,” Leia said immediately, and Luke gaped at them.

“You’d go to England without me?”

“You can hide in our luggage,” Han replied, without missing a beat, and Luke made a face, looking down at himself in exaggerated confusion, as if wondering when he suddenly became small enough to fit into a suitcase.

It was definitely a case of the grass always being greener, she thought. To someone who’d practically raised himself, and had spent most of his life living paycheck to paycheck, never sure if he was going to be kicked out of his flat this time next month, spending Christmas in a fancy manor in the English countryside sounded divine. But to someone who had spent her life growing up in a family that had always seemed to judge her and find her wanting, with impossible standards to uphold and _perfect_ being the only acceptable way to be, spending Christmas in a small New York flat with friends who never judged her and never demanded that she be anything other than exactly what she was sounded like the perfect holiday.

She met Bodhi’s eyes, and saw the exact same feeling fly across his face.

“It sounds… interesting,” Cassian said enigmatically. “English countryside?”

“Yeah,” Bodhi answered, “a bit outside London. It was built in the 1800s, but Gran and Papa bought it about forty years ago.”

“And your relationship status matters because…?” he asked, and Jyn sighed.

“Anything that isn’t perfect is unacceptable,” she replied. “Mum left the whole continent to get away from their expectations, but she still goes back once or twice a year and so we’re stuck with them too.”

“Ah,” he said, drawing the syllable out, “and you being single is imperfect.”

“Exactly.”

He seemed to be mulling it over, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about it.

(Full disclosure, she had a bit of a crush on him. Just a bit! He was certainly attractive and they’d been friends ever since getting stuck together on a lab when he was a senior and she was a sophomore taking classes that she _really_ ought to have put off. He’d helped her pass and never asked for anything in return (although she’d insisted on buying him a drink), and the idea of a week being his fake girlfriend sounded… awkward, if she was being completely honest with herself. He’d always seemed so untouchable, unfazed at everything.)

“You really don’t have to,” she said quietly, and he glanced at her.

“I don’t have to pay for it?” he asked, and she shrugged.

“Unless you just want to go souvenir shopping or sight-seeing, no.”

He seemed to think about it for a moment, glancing around the table, before shrugging nonchalantly. “I’ll do it,” he said, as though it was nothing. “It sounds fun.”

She doubted that, but Bodhi grinned. “It’ll be _something_ ,” she said. “That’s for sure.”

.

Her mother had sounded… skeptical when she’d said that they’d need a fifth plane ticket, but she’d agreed without any real fuss, and so it was decided.

Jyn would, if pressed, blame Bodhi. He seemed okay with it.

“I don’t know why I let you talk me into this,” she grumbled to him, as they stood at the bar to pay their respective tabs. “Even _if_ they buy it, it’s gonna be awkward as hell.”

“Mm,” was all Bodhi said in response, and she poked him hard in the arm.

“I’m counting on you to have my back,” she growled. “After you pulled that stunt with the picture — and _why_ I will never know — "

“Because you’re _way_ more obvious about your crush than you think you are,” he cut her off airily, taking his card and scribbling a tip and what passed for his signature. She gaped at him. “So, you know,” he added, laying the pen over her own card, “you can thank me later.”

“I do not have — I would never — you — if anyone has a crush on him, it’s _you_ ,” she spluttered, with a finish that even she knew was painfully lame. He snorted.

“Yeah, that was convincing,” he said evenly. “If it’s any consolation, I don’t think he’s figured it out.”

It… kind of was, actually. “You’re completely ridiculous,” she hissed, but he waved her off, shoving his wallet into his back pocket and giving her a hug she didn’t return.

“See you Monday morning, dark and early.”

“I mean it, you’re — " she started, but gave up when he ignored her protests outright. “Prick,” she muttered under her breath.

.

“So,” her dad said, as they arrived at the airport, and Jyn had to physically stop herself from cringing, “Cassian. Is your name.”

“Yes, sir,” Cassian replied, sounding for all the world like he really was meeting his girlfriend’s dad and not like he was seriously regretting the life choices that had brought him to this point (which was what Jyn, personally, was doing). Her dad seemed to be thinking it over for a moment, before he glanced at Jyn and sighed.

“Well, I think they’ll buy it, at least,” he muttered. “When did I first meet you?”

“Let’s say two months ago?” Cassian suggested, rolling with the punches, and Galen smirked.

“Sounds good,” he sighed. “Lyra’s family can be a handful, I hope you’ve been warned.”

“I have been.”

“Good,” Galen replied, and glanced at Jyn. “Was this your idea?”

“No, it was Bodhi’s,” she answered, a bit weakly. “Everybody wins!” she said abruptly, when he gave her his trademarked _you know I know you’re full of shit right?_ look. “Cassian gets to spend Christmas in England, and I don’t have to deal with the third degree from Gran!”

“Mm-hm.”

Cassian shrugged, shouldering his carry-on bag. “I don’t have any family in the area,” he said, and her dad glanced at him. “So it wasn’t out of my way.”

“Hmm,” Galen mused, looking between the two of them. “Well, your grandmother will be excited, that’s for sure.”

“Where is Bodhi?” Lyra asked, sounding harried, as she joined them with boarding passes and handed them out distractedly.

“He was just behind us,” Cassian replied, and Mum nodded, rearranging her overflowing carry-on with some anxiety — if Jyn was held up to superhuman standards, Lyra was held up to absolutely _impossible_ ones, and would almost certainly spend the entire flight back ranting about how much she hated her mother (who she had taken to describing, since going on a Netflix binge several months ago, as " _Literally_ Lucille Bluth") and demanding to know why she ever put up with them. Jyn had learned a long time ago not to ever mention it to her after the fact.

Finally, Lyra seemed to realize that she didn’t know Jyn’s companion; she paused, turned, looked him over with a total lack of emotion, and then glanced at Jyn. “This is your completely-serious-and-not-fake-at-all boyfriend, then?”

“Yes, this is Cassian,” she replied, voice strained, and Mum nodded.

“I hope she warned you about my mother,” she said, but before he could say anything, Bodhi arrived with arms full of bags and the scowl of one who could have happily slept for seven more hours. “There you are!”

“Jyn, you forgot your bloody passport again,” he grumbled, all-but throwing it at her; sleep deprivation tended to turn her normally-sweet brother into an absolute grouch. She caught it and shrugged.

“That’s why I leave it with you.”

“It is _way_ too early in the morning to start this,” Mum said, heading off Bodhi’s retort.

“This is why I haven’t gone to sleep yet,” Jyn muttered, and Cassian made a noise of agreement.

“Hi, Cassian,” Bodhi said, a bit sullenly.

“By the way,” Galen cut in, placing a hand on Bodhi’s shoulder, “we’ll need to discuss why helping your sister deceive your grandparents isn’t a good idea.”

“I don’t know,” Lyra mused, ushering them toward security. “I’m kind of ashamed I never thought of it.”

“ _Lyra_ ,” Galen sighed.

“Do you have _any idea_ how many screaming matches she and I got into when I was Jyn’s age?” Lyra countered. “Good on you, love. You found a way to make her happy without anybody leaving in tears.”

“I’m really sorry,” she told Cassian, who just raised an eyebrow, typically unreadable, but maybe amused? She was never _sure_ with him. “You can still back out.”

“And leave you without an excuse?” he challenged in a low voice. “You must think so little of me.”

She smiled, in spite of herself.

.

Jyn spent most of the nine-hour flight asleep on a pillow laid on the pull-out tray; or at least, a certain definition of sleeping, as close as was possible with a toddler in the next row and Bodhi’s increasingly-irritated mumbling over the same on her right. Cassian had taken the aisle seat, but for the short time that she was awake, he was engrossed in what appeared to be a grant proposal, although he seemed to spend most of the time staring at the screen with the vaguely-distasteful expression of stalled editing.

It made her feel better about the full hour she’d spent giving her thesis the exact same look.

They landed in Heathrow to everyone’s general relief with a minimum of fuss and fighting, and ended up in a two-car caravan to the house.

“I just wanna know what, _specifically_ ,” Bodhi was saying, “Gran _did_ to make Mum call her that.”

Jyn glanced up from her bags, trying to ignore the creeping worry that she’d forgotten something. “Oh, I actually know this one,” she replied, and both Bodhi and Cassian looked at her. “Apparently, she’s refusing to acknowledge that she got her PhD, because “looking at rocks” was not the kind of doctor she was supposed to be.”

Both of them cringed. “Yeah, but,” Bodhi started, “Mum doesn’t usually go _that_ hard against her.”

“Oh, this wasn’t to her face.”

“Oh,” he said, sounding a little disappointed. “I thought she actually said this, Dad made it sound like she actually said it _to_ her this time.”

“No,” Jyn sighed, “Gran’s wised up, she always talks to Mum on speaker now.”

“I…” Cassian started, looking confused, “why does your mother even _talk_ to her, if they hate each other so much?”

“Good question,” Bodhi muttered, but Jyn shook her head.

“You’ve never been guilt-tripped by Papa,” she said firmly. “Mum’s got _nothing_ on him. I tried to get out of coming here a couple of years ago and Mum actually told them I wasn’t coming, but then _he_ called me. I caved in less than a minute.”

“ _Wow_ ,” Cassian said, looking surprised — he would be, considering that he was the group’s resident peacekeeper (whether he liked it or not) and knew first-hand how difficult it was to make Jyn budge when she’d made up her mind — and Bodhi whistled.

“What did he say?”

“He told me he had cancer.”

“He lied to you?” Bodhi exclaimed, then made a face. “I hope?”

“Yes and no,” she replied, rubbing her face. “It was a skin cancer he’d gotten removed. Apparently he’s used it on Mum before, but she didn’t warn me.”

“I like him already,” Cassian said, and she snorted.

“Papa’s easy to get along with. I guess after sixty years with Gran he’s just completely stopped caring.”

“Yeah, I usually spend, like, ninety percent of my time here with him,” Bodhi added.

“‘Cause you can get away with it,” Jyn said darkly, and Bodhi winced. Jyn, being female, was required to do certain “feminine” things at family gatherings, such as cook and clean and entertain. She’d tried several times to join in with the men — because her cooking was passable but not special, cleaning was basically okay but her least favorite thing to do, and entertaining was downright atrocious, and also because it rankled her on a _deep and fundamental level_ that the men were allowed to watch TV and drink bourbon while the women did all the actual work of making a livable house — but although Papa and Dad and Bodhi and a couple of the uncles had made space for her, the disapproving glares and dark mutterings from two of her aunts and Gran had ultimately been too much to ignore.

“Oh,” Cassian said, nodding slowly. “It’s _that_ kind of place.”

“Yep,” she and Bodhi both answered at the same time.

“I should bring my sister sometime,” he suggested. “Sylvia is the _queen_ of passive-aggressive housework.”

“Pa — what?” she laughed, and he shook his head.

“Once, when I was thirteen, I told her that cleaning was her job,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. Jyn raised an eyebrow, and he held up both hands in supplication. “I was thirteen,” he added, with some guilt, and shrugged. “She cleaned the whole house but put all the trash in my room.”

Jyn laughed out loud. “Oh, that’s a _good_ idea.”

“Like, the kitchen trash, too?” Bodhi said, aghast, and Cassian nodded.

“Yes, that she “stored” on my bed. _After_ cleaning out the fridge.”

“I need your sister to move to New York,” Jyn said firmly. He gave her a half-smile.

“I keep telling her to,” he replied, shrugging. “She tells me I should move to Chicago.”

The thought left Jyn’s insides suddenly cold, but she tried to shrug it off. “Yeah, but then we’ll all have to follow you,” she said, making a face like it was all a joke, and he shook his head.

“I hate Chicago,” he said, and Jyn _did not_ get hit with a wave of relief at that, because _that would be stupid_. “It’s so… artsy.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” Bodhi cut in. “Don’t ask Reid about how college is going, apparently it’s bad.” Jyn rolled her eyes; to Cassian, he explained: “Reid is on year five of a bachelor’s in Art History.”

“Six, actually,” Jyn added with false helpfulness, but Bodhi winced.

“Yeah, but he wasn’t majoring in Art History for the first one,” he said magnanimously. “It’s not really fair to count all his theatre courses.”

“He couldn’t do gen-ed until he made up his mind like the rest of the plebeians?” she muttered, and Bodhi made a face.

“Of _course_ not.”

“What does he plan to do with his degree?” Cassian asked.

“Curator at a museum,” Bodhi replied. “I mean, in all fairness, it _is_ interesting, and he knows a lot about how art shapes society and the historical background of… everything. It’s cool.”

Jyn fought the urge to sneer; Bodhi was just too damn nice for his own good. And — okay, fine, art history probably _had_ been an interesting class to take, and Reid _did_ make some good points about art and society, but all of it was, to Jyn, who had been raised on hard science and pursued a major and now advanced degree in physics, an elective. She knew it wasn’t really fair to look down on the liberal arts, but at the same time… she really looked down on the liberal arts.

It was just… it was just what rich kids did with their parents’ money when they didn’t want to do anything _real_.

“That doesn’t sound interesting to me,” she muttered, and Cassian glanced at her.

“It takes all kinds,” he replied simply. She wrinkled her nose, but didn’t comment.

“Yeah, Jyn,” Bodhi said, poking her in the shoulder, “just because _you_ don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s worthless.”

She mimed gagging.

“Okay, but you barely passed Comp II,” Cassian added, and she scowled at him.

“Because it was _stupid_ ,” she exclaimed, crossing her arms and clenching her jaw. “Why am I wasting my time writing papers on _Hamlet_ when I’m a physics major?”

“Because it broadens your mind,” Bodhi said, as Cassian turned in his seat to look at her.

“You got drunk and told me all about how _the Lion King_ is a retelling of _Hamlet_ , and how cool that was,” he told her matter-of-factly. Bodhi cackled.

“When was _this?_ ”

“You _traitor_ ,” she hissed, but he didn’t look even remotely remorseful.

“I’m just pointing out,” he said, settling into his seat, “you cried when you watched _the Lion King_ after studying _Hamlet_ , because you thought it was so brilliant.”

“I had had like seven drinks! And also it’s _the Lion King_ ,” she added darkly. “You’re a _robot_ if you don’t cry when Mufasa dies.”

“That was _not_ the only time you cried.”

Bodhi was laughing so hard he could barely breathe now, and in fact, even the cab driver was snickering. She crossed her arms again and glared at Cassian, who simply raised an eyebrow.

“I can’t believe you would betray me like this,” she said.

“I’m calling attention to your hypocrisy, not betraying you. I’d never betray you.”

She was spared from having to come up with a reply by the fact that they had arrived at her grandparents’ house; it loomed up in the darkness like Dracula’s castle, in her mind.

Jyn joked a lot about it, for her mother’s and Bodhi’s sake, but she actually really dreaded coming here every time.

She just always spent the whole time feeling so _alone_. Everybody, from her friends to her family to movies and TV and books, all told her that Christmas was the time when you were supposed to feel less alone than the rest of the year, but… Jyn hated Christmas, for that reason.

She glanced aside, out the window, but caught Cassian’s eye; he looked like he was seeing straight through her, which wasn’t weird for him, usually, but considering that they were about to spend a week sharing a room and probably a bed, it still made her uncomfortable.

Cassian always seemed to know more about what she was thinking than she had exactly said; ironic, considering that she felt like she could barely read him at all on the best of days.

She shook her head a little, and either she’d imagined it or he decided not to push the issue, because he didn’t comment on it, and before she could really catch her breath, they were unloading and walking up to the house.

It was a rare clear night, stars twinkling with a nearly-full moon lighting up the walkway, and the Christmas lights were glowing in the darkness — it was, even Jyn had to admit, a picturesque scene. The house looked like a Robert Frost poem.

Mum breathed a heavy sigh and paused as if to steel herself, before opening the door.

“Lyra, darling!” Gran gushed as soon as they stepped in, coming over to hug them. Mum’s smile was painted on, and so was Jyn’s. Bodhi was the only one who looked genuinely happy to be there, which could either be sincere or just him being a better actor than them. It was a toss-up. “How was the flight, love?”

“Long,” Mum replied tightly. “But no trouble.”

“Well, that’s good,” Gran beamed, and Jyn felt kind of bad for all the things they said about her — she always did, when she actually acted like a grandmother rather than both Statler _and_ Waldorf, but without the muppet charm. She made an effort at a sincere smile. “Bodhi,” she went on lovingly, giving him a hug, then to Dad, a warm, “Galen,” and (she cringed internally but managed not to let it show)… “Jyn! You must introduce me to the lucky man!”

“Gran, this is Cassian,” she replied, indicating to him. He set his bag down and held out a hand to shake, but Gran scoffed and pulled him into a hug instead. Bodhi managed to turn his laugh into a believable cough.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, finally,” he said, sounding sincere, if stiff. “I’ve heard a lot.”

“All good, I hope?” Gran joked, and he gave her a killer smile, which honestly shouldn’t be legal. He the world's best smile, and it was just impossible _not_ to be taken in by it.

(Jyn had told him this before, and his response had basically been _yeah, it’s gotten me out of trouble a few times_.)

It was definitely working on Gran, who looked downright enchanted.

“Of course,” he answered. “I hear you’re the reason Jyn and her mother both are so accomplished in the States.”

It was such a beautifully back-handed statement that there was no possible way that he hadn’t come up with it ahead of time. Lyra glanced back at him, clearly trying not to laugh, Jyn grinned, Galen was looking straight ahead as though afraid to meet anyone’s eye, and Bodhi was about to have to fake a cold to explain his coughing fit.

“He’s got that right,” Jyn said brightly, as Gran preened before turning to Bodhi, concerned.

“Bodhi, dear, are you all right?” she asked, and he indicated to his throat.

“Yeah, just… the weather, you know how it is,” he answered hoarsely, and she patted him on the shoulder.

“I keep telling you, all that smog in the big city is _not_ good for you,” Gran tsked, ushering them into the kitchen, where the rest of the family — consisting of Mum’s three sisters and one brother, their respective spouses, a grand total of twelve grandchildren plus Jyn and Bodhi, seven significant others to the grandchildren not including Cassian, five great-grandchildren, and three dogs — was milling around, eating snacks and chatting.

There was a general cacophony of greetings and introductions in the kitchen, as everyone wanted to meet Jyn’s “Mr. Right” as they all… _insisted_ on repeating. Apparently that had been the way Gran had told everyone, and either they genuinely thought it was wonderful or they just _loved_ taking the mickey out of Jyn — roughly fifty-fifty, in this group — but they had really taken up the nickname for Cassian.

She wanted to melt into the floor.

Cassian had definitely seen a lot of Jyn’s crap — he’d all-but carried her home a few times, he’d seen her crying over both truly sad things and cartoon lions, he’d seen her high, he’d even been puked on by her at one (unfortunately memorable) point — so she was pretty sure that her awkward and overbearing family wouldn’t be enough to make him decide that this friendship was officially more trouble than it was worth.

 _Pretty_ sure.

He didn’t seem freaked-out or overwhelmed, and in fact was playing the part of the devoted boyfriend disturbingly well, with an arm around her waist and an expression of genuine interest in meeting all of these random people on another continent that he would never have to deal with again. The man had missed his life’s calling as an actor, frankly.

She’d always known that he had a silver tongue — she would never forget the time some jackass had groped her at the bar and she’d retaliated, only to discover that said jackass was a cop who wasn’t above pressing charges for Assaulting an Officer, a shitstorm he’d single-handedly talked her out of — but this was a degree of method acting that deserved a bloody _Oscar_.

If anyone was going to screw this up and out them, it would definitely be Jyn.

So… no pressure.

On the other hand, the only thing worse than the introductions and “how’ve you been”s was —

“It was such a long flight,” Lyra yawned. “I know it’s still early, but we’ve had a very long day.”

She glanced at Jyn, who was usually 100% on-board with helping Mum avoid further interaction with her mother by feigning total exhaustion (which, of course, Lyra — ever-devoted to her children — would need to help with, for some reason), but this time was different. This time, “going on to bed early” would mean committing to sharing a room and a bed with Cassian, and honestly, she wasn’t completely emotionally-prepared for that just yet.

Not that she was any better-prepared for conversations with the family about when they met and how they fell in love, but of the two, she felt like that was safer.

“Oh, I understand,” Gran said. “You get on to bed, you all look exhausted!”

Nothing was said regarding where Cassian would sleep, which meant that it was assumed he would be staying with her. Gran would have said so if she felt that he should stay with Bodhi or one of her single cousins, but she probably wanted to come off as progressive and understanding to the total stranger in their midst, at least for the first impressions.

 _Okay,_ she thought. _It’s fine, you’re fine. He’s your best friend, this will be fine_.

Just… go to bed with him.

 _This is fine_.

.

Cassian had not actually considered this aspect of the trip.

Jyn had slept in his bed before, when she’d been completely passed-out and he’d put her there to sleep the worst of it off where he could check to make sure she was breathing periodically, but there had always been a couch that he could sleep on while she was there. It somehow hadn’t occurred to him – it was her grandparents’ house, for heaven’s sake, surely they wouldn’t be okay with their single granddaughter sleeping in the same bed as her “boyfriend”, right? He’d sort of expected to room with Bodhi, if anything.

He was wrong.

He was… probably overreacting in his head. After all, it was a big bed, not some tiny little twin-sized thing, and so there wasn’t any reason why they couldn’t just sleep on opposite sides of the bed like the grown adults they were. And the jet lag was starting to set in, so it wasn’t like there would even be a whisper of anything except sleep. And… it wouldn’t be a problem. They were both adults. They could share a bed without things becoming awkward. Right?

“I can take the floor,” he said anyway, because he honestly wasn’t sure, and knew his own sleeping habits. She rolled her eyes.

“That’s stupid, it’s a big bed,” she replied, and he shrugged.

“If you’re sure.”

He was kind of proud of how confident and certain he sounded, and also kind of hating himself for it.

“It’s fine,” she said, waving it off and unzipping her suitcase, before pausing and sighing heavily, and grumbling, “ _Hairbrush_.”

“What?”

“I _knew_ I forgot something.”

“Oh,” he replied lamely, rubbing the back of his neck. “I can’t really help you there.”

“Ugh,” she muttered, and began braiding her hair — presumably to keep it from getting too tangled in the night — with some force. “I hate this place.”

“It does seem… cold,” he answered, wincing. Honestly, it had seemed more fake than anything else, like he wasn’t the only person there playing a part; he could see how Jyn, who was a fundamentally pragmatic person with little patience for playing by pointless social rules, would hate being here. “I didn’t catch your cousins’ names, sorry,” he added, because, well… there had been a lot of them, and they all kind of looked the same. She laughed.

“Yeah, they’re all… very white.”

“ _You_ are white,” he countered, and she made a face.

“Yeah, but there’s white and then there’s _white_. Most of my family is the latter.”

“I gathered,” he replied, “from the fact that you have cousins named Chet and Piers.”

“Don’t forget Garrett and Ferguson and Reid.”

He shook his head, but honestly couldn’t remember who any of those people were. Usually had a good memory for faces and names, but they really all seemed to blend together. “So who of these should I bother interacting with?” he asked, and she wrinkled her nose. “And don’t say none of them.”

She sighed, and began ticking them off on her fingers. “Reid is kind of pretentious, but he’s nice and he’ll like you. Kent is my favorite cousin, he’s about six months older than me. Garrett is a huge asshole, avoid him at all costs. Chad is almost as big an asshole as Garrett. David is nice, but he’s got twin daughters, so he never goes anywhere with anybody. Evan is all right, but kind of weird. Fergie is a twit, don’t take offense when he says something offensive, he’s too dumb to mean anything by it. Chet is a jerk, but in a funny way, so everybody forgives him for all his shit. I don’t think I’ve ever had a conversation with Andy, he’s practically my mother’s age and spends most of his time with that generation or his kids. Piers is pretty cool, but he’s high about eighty percent of the time, so, you know. So…” She trailed off for a moment, thinking, then ticked off again, “Reid, Kent, Evan if you’re feeling brave, and Piers if you're drunk off your ass.”

“I’m sure I met them,” he said, with some trepidation, “but I have no idea what any of them look like.”

“It’s fine,” she replied, shrugging. “They won’t mind re-introducing themselves, they get it. I won’t let Garrett and Chad corner you.”

“What would happen if they did?” he asked, glancing sideways at her. She took a deep breath.

“Probably I’d end up punching them.”

“Have you ever…” he started, and she nodded with no shame.  
  
“Yeah, I have,” she said. “I broke Garrett’s nose two years ago, he hates me.” 

“Oh,” he replied. “Good to know. Which one was he?”

“Picture the worst Tinder profile imaginable.”

He paused and mulled that over. “The one in plaid?”

“Yep, that’s him,” she answered, with some amusement, pulling clothing out of her suitcase and gesturing to the door that he assumed led to a bathroom. “I’m gonna shower and change.”

“Right,” he said, _potently_ aware of the awkwardness and trying to hide it by rummaging through his own suitcase.

The door shut behind her and he let out a long, slow breath.

They were friends. Jyn was probably his best friend, in fact, had introduced him to most of the group when they’d had a class together and she’d been paired with him in lab. She’d been sharing a dorm with Leia at the time, who had invited them both out with her brother and “his asshole roommate” (Han) after she found them studying (more like Cassian teaching Jyn the pre-reqs that she _really_ should have taken before that class even though they weren't strictly required) on a Friday night. Neither he nor Jyn had been particularly interested in going out, but were both _very_ interested in disabusing Leia of the notion that they were refusing so they could hook up, and so they’d gone. And… that had sort of been that.

He’d never been uncomfortable around Jyn before, never felt awkward, except for the thirty seconds between Leia saying “oh, I get it” in _that_ tone and accepting her invitation to go out. It had always just… clicked with Jyn, worked out naturally. Nothing had ever really needed to be said.

Granted, even he could admit that he had been nastier to Jyn’s most recent ex than was strictly necessary, even before she’d walked in on him with some other girl; he’d insisted, to Bodhi’s repeated suspicious comments and looks, that the guy had always just rubbed him the wrong way, which was true, even if not entirely everything.

They were _friends_. It was normal to get angry at people who cheated on — or who you felt might cheat on — your friends.

He had almost had himself convinced of that, _almost_ managed to believe that that was really all there was to it, and now Bodhi got the bright idea that he should be Jyn’s fake boyfriend for a week and conveniently neglected to mention the part where they’d be sharing not only a room but also a bed. Not that it would have stopped him from agreeing — Jyn always came back from this place depressed and kind of self-destructive, bitterly complaining about her awful family, and if he could take some of that pressure off her, then he’d put up with just about anything.

But still. It would have been nice to get, you know, a _warning_.

He’d already changed and gotten into the bed by the time that Jyn came back out of the bathroom, turned off the lamp, and crawled under the covers; he was acutely, painfully, _agonizingly_ aware of how close she was laying to him, the heat from the shower radiating off of her, inches away.  
  
In spite of the overwhelming exhaustion, he lay awake for at least an hour, staring at the ceiling.


	2. act two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you may note by the number of chapters that i have closely examined my pacing and resigned myself to my fate. many thanks to mechanical-orange for being an amazing beta!

shall I stay? would it be a sin?

.

.

The first thing she became aware of was that there were two small children in the bed, bouncing up and down and saying (squealing)… _something_ , something incoherent to Jyn’s pre-dawn brain, and at a pitch normally reserved for… well, very small children.

The second was that there was an arm around her, but retreating as the other person awoke.

She opened her eyes and looked into two pairs of identical green ones, in faces framed by long, black hair, and she glanced to the side to see that Cassian was in the bed with her, wearing a deeply-confused expression, but in the hazy morning her first actual thought was —

 _Oh my God I’ve jumped into the future_.

And then she remembered her cousin’s twin daughters.

“Who…” Cassian started, sounding groggy and uncertain, “are they?”

“Lily and Luna,” Jyn answered. “David’s kids.”

“Oh,” was all he said in reply, then shook his head as if to clear it.

“It’s time to get up!” one of them — heaven help her, she couldn’t tell them apart, she was the worst pseudo-aunt ever — trilled.

“Daddy said to get the sleepyheads up!” the other yelled.

“And you picked us?” Jyn mumbled, sitting up and blinking at the clock, which read 6:45 AM. Off to a great start, this week was.

(…had Cassian been spooning with her, or had she dreamed that? She… actually was no longer sure. She was never very sure of anything this early in the goddamn morning.)

“Yours was the only door we got in,” the first answered. So that meant that Bodhi had remembered David’s habit of sending in “the cavalry” of his two excitable children to wake up any stragglers, and pre-emptively locked his door.

 _He could have reminded me_ , she thought darkly.

“Right, well,” she said, and put on a show of smiling. “You got us up, yay! You can go tell your daddy you did your jobs.”

They both crowed and bounced out of the room, and Jyn waited for a moment, listening to them bound down the stairs, then laid back down and pulled the blanket over her head.

“You know they’re gonna come back,” Cassian said, but it sounded like his voice was muffled, like probably he was burying his face in the pillow in a similar effort to ignore the dawn.

“So lock the door,” she grumbled. He just groaned in response.

.

“It’s breakfast time!” was the next thing she was aware of, spoken by someone male (probably David, but possibly Andy) on the other side of the door. “You’re gonna miss all the bacon!”

 _I could not give less of a shit about bacon_ , she thought, but raised her head and glanced beside her, where Cassian had not, apparently, moved at all since the twins had barged in and then out of the room, and only might have been alive. The clock read 7:15. So they’d given them another half-hour, probably sniggering all the while about what they were doing with said half-hour.

Ugh.

Jyn considered herself to be “mostly” a morning person — she’d never had trouble with 8 AM classes and was generally fine with getting out of bed, once she’d had a cup or three of coffee — but this, following a nine-hour transatlantic flight the previous day, was simply unreasonable. She knew Cassian to be more of a morning person than herself, and took it as a mark in her favor that he he had yet to move, assuming he was actually breathing.

On the other hand, there was no amount of sleeping in that would kill the jet lag, and staying in bed for another, oh, fifteen hours, would only ensure that she didn’t get any sleep at all tonight and didn’t adjust to the time difference for at least another day.

So she might as well get up.

“We’re coming!” she yelled, and the knocking stopped.

Mum swore by morning runs to cure jet lag, and Bodhi tended to treat it like a nasty hangover, but both Jyn and her father had resigned themselves long ago to simply being zombies for the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours.

Probably nobody would expect snappy conversation from her, at least.

“Cassian,” she said, poking him, and he made a half-hearted noise of protest. “It’s time for breakfast.”

“ _Fuck_ breakfast,” he mumbled, _emphatically_ , and she fought the urge to laugh.

“They’re not gonna stop.”

“ _Eventually_ , they will.”

“It’s not gonna cure the jet lag.”

He pulled the top pillow out from under his face and covered the back of his head with it, as though that would help.

“That is _also_ not gonna cure the jet lag,” she said, shoving at him and maybe moving his shoulder an inch.

He groaned, then appeared to rally himself, and sat up with some force, blinking and rubbing his face. “I need a shower,” he mumbled, and Jyn gestured to the bathroom, trying to ignore the fact that he was not, in fact, wearing a shirt. It made sense, and she felt like it was something she had sort of known in the back of her mind, but had not actually, as such, processed. She couldn't _not_ stare. It was not possible to _not_ stare. “If you’re asleep when I come back in here,” he added, standing up, “I will drag you out of this room by your feet.”

“That’s fair.”

He nodded slowly and left, and Jyn buried her face in the pillow for one more glorious moment before dragging herself up and staggering out of the (soft, warm, inviting, wonderful) bed.

 _And into the lion’s den_ , she thought darkly.

But it wasn’t as bad as she’d feared, mostly because she was one of the last ones up and so pretty much everyone had already raided the breakfast spread Gran (and/or Aunt Lizzie) had made and set out. So it was just her and the great-grandkids, and the kids — too young to give a damn about her appearance or demeanor or any of the other myriad ways that Gran tended to passive-aggressively remind her that she was imperfect and lacking — were the best part of this place.

She busied herself for a few minutes with helping them get breakfast, and even made a cheerful show of giving the very last piece of bacon to Andy’s youngest, a five-year-old boy named Tom with a grin like sunshine.

Kent stumbled down the stairs shortly after her, made a noise of dismay at the lack of bacon (she winked at Tom) and slumped into one of the chairs at the breakfast table and laid his head down on his arms with every sign of total defeat.

“Where’s the boy?” he asked, muffled by the table.

“Taking a shower. What did _you_ get up to last night?”

He groaned. “Pub crawl with… Reid and others. Huge mistake. Want to die.”

“How sick did you get?”

“ _So_ sick. I thought I was gonna chuck my _actual stomach_ up.”

“Here,” she said, handing over her plate. “You can have my bacon. The salt should help.”

Without ever picking his head up off the table, he reached out, took it, and apparently ate it, squirreling it away into the space between his arms and the table. So far, it was turning out to be a not-terrible morning — Kent and the kids were the only part of being here that she genuinely liked (although Reid was fine when he wasn’t being completely insufferable), and everybody else had taken their breakfasts to the formal dining room, so it was nice and peaceful and she knew she was tempting fate even _thinking_ it.

By the time Cassian appeared, looking relatively put-together considering the circumstances, she was even almost in a good mood.

“The coffee’s fresh,” she told him, and he gave her a look of profound gratefulness.

“Where can I find the largest mug?”

“Cupboard above the coffeemaker,” Kent answered for her. “I keep a couple giant-arse ones on the top shelf.”

It was then — when things seemed to be going remarkably, uncharacteristically, surprisingly well — that Gran made her appearance from the dining room. Her eyes lit on Cassian, who gave her a tired half-smile in response, which she returned, and then she looked at Jyn and her smile sort of… froze.

 _Here it comes_ , she thought. _I wonder what she’s gonna criticize first_.

“Jyn, darling,” Gran said, walking up behind her and touching her hair, “your hair looks simply -- “

“Like I just woke up?” she cut her off, trying (and failing) to keep the edge out of her voice. Gran tsked.

“You know, previously, you could get away this sort of thing, dear, and I would let it pass without comment,” she started, and freaking _lied_ because she never let _anything_ pass without comment. “But you’ve got someone to impress, now, which means you should be taking a bit of care with your appearance.”

Kent, if possible, buried his face further into the table in an attempt to get away from the brewing trouble. She tried to find a polite way of telling her grandmother to get off her back, since she’d flown across a whole ocean yesterday and was still jet-lagged to hell and back and hadn't even changed out of pajamas yet, but just before she landed on “screw it, and screw you” —

“She could be wearing a burlap sack and shaved bald and I would still be impressed with her.”

All three adults at the table looked up, to where Cassian was standing, holding his coffee and looking entirely unfazed. He shrugged as if it was nothing, a completely natural statement.

“It’s true,” he said, and it sounded _extremely_ convincing. “She is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

It was sappy and over the top, but he _sold_ it, to the point that even Jyn felt a blush creeping up her neck. She spotted Kent giving him an approving thumbs-up, and Gran seemed at a loss for words.

“Well,” she floundered, glancing from him to Jyn and back. “He’s certainly a keeper.”

Jyn felt like there was definitely something she was supposed to say here, to chime in, to keep the facade going, even though every thought in her head was locked onto _most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen_ (nobody ever called her that, nobody ever thought that about her, and… even if it was just a line to impress her grandmother, it still… it took her off-guard) and she landed on a half-smile and, “I think so, too.”

She wasn’t as good an actor as Cassian, but it didn’t seem to raise any suspicions.

Gran glanced over her again, but apparently didn’t find anything more heinous than her hair to criticize — and at any rate, she was probably still trying to be on good behavior for the new guy — and simply refilled her coffee and bustled back into the dining room. Cassian joined Jyn and Kent at the breakfast table, and Kent gave him a wave before laying his head back down.

“I’m sorry,” Cassian said, “but I’m not sure which one you are.”

Her cousin laughed. “I’m Kent,” he replied. “Me, Jyn, and Bodhi make up the black sheep of the family.” He hesitated, glanced up and gave Cassian a scrutinizing look for a moment, then seemed to come to some decision. “Me and Bodhi, it’s because we like men. Jyn is just… really unlucky.”

“Ah, yes,” Cassian said slowly. “You’re the one Bodhi sent pictures of me to.”

The noise that came out of Kent’s mouth after that could only be described as a _cackle_. “Look, I’m probably not telling you anything new,” he explained, “but Jyn’s got shite taste in men, they always screw her over. I’m just trying to look out for her.”

“No, I know,” Cassian replied, and she gave him a look, which he returned with a raised eyebrow. “I’ve known you for six years,” he said to her. “You tend to find men who do not treat you very well.”

This, at least, was true. But before she could make a comment about _okay but you could at least, like, not say that in front of me_ , Kent piped up.

“So, you’ve been friends for a long time?” he asked, glancing between them, his chin resting on his arm. “That’s really good, that’s a strong start. I’m happy for you,” he tacked on, looking at Jyn and looking so sincere that it actually made her feel guilty about this farce. Kent, at least, she didn’t want to lie to, but he couldn't keep a secret for shit. “You deserve someone who treats you right.”

She wasn’t sure how to respond, so she took a deep sip of coffee, and then changed the subject. “So, where’s your brother? Sleeping it off?”

Kent groaned. “Reid is still being sick,” he admitted, wincing. “I… encouraged him to have an extra… two shots. It was a mistake. Everything about last night was a mistake.”

“Reid is the Art History major?” Cassian asked, and Kent nodded.

“Yeah, he’s my little brother,” he replied. “He will —  _I promise you —_  bitch to you about how everyone assumes he’s the gay one, because I do construction and he does art and theatre. It might be the first sentence he says to you. I think he takes it personally.”

He glanced at her. “I’m gonna take a guess and say that your mother and whichever sibling is their parent, are close.”

“What tipped you off?” she replied, but Kent seemed genuinely confused, so she explained. “He was asking about who here he should talk to last night,” she said, shrugging, since Kent was probably the only person who wouldn’t be offended by it. “I mentioned both you and Reid.”

“Ah,” Kent said, drawing the syllable out. “Yeah, Mum and Aunt Lyra are, like, a year apart, they were each others Maids of Honor, or… you know what I mean. My theory is, there was something in the water right around the time Gran got knocked up both times, and that’s why they were so different, and why we’re our own little outsider clique. It’s their fault.”

“If I could spend this entire week with you and Reid and Aunt Tilda,” Jyn started, leaning her chin on her hand, “I would be completely happy.”

Kent nodded. “I’m convinced that Mum is the only reason Aunt Lyra even comes to visit.”

That… made a lot of sense. Lyra and Tilda were thick as thieves, and they’d been really happy, when the kids were younger, that their children got along so well, even though that meant that they didn’t get along with anybody else, including their mother. Aunt Tilda was also her favorite aunt, by far. She’d been the only one to support Jyn’s attempt to get out of the “women’s work” or at least shame the boys into joining, and she was the only aunt who had ever visited New York to see Lyra.

Maybe it wasn’t just Papa’s guilt trips; Jyn knew, without ever having to question it, that she would fly across the Atlantic and deal with all these people if it meant she could spend some time with Bodhi.

There was family, and then there was blood kin, and the two did not necessarily overlap.

“I can see that,” she replied slowly, taking a deep draught of her coffee.

.

The day, it seemed, had peaked early; it began to go sharply downhill from there.

It started when Bodhi pulled Cassian away to help him get Reid from the bathroom to the bed — after Kent loudly proclaimed that he was washing his hands of this nonsense, and quietly admitted that he wasn't sure he could lift anything with his current hangover — and left her at the table, right as Gran and one of her aunts came back in.

First, it was that her clothes were too loose — Jyn preferred the term “comfortable” but that led to a faux-concerned comment about her losing weight (which she had not done) and looking like a broom, and then onto a vaguely-mocking comment regarding her taste in fashion. Kent had, in a kind if misguided attempt to deflect some of it, mentioned that Cassian had been her friend for a long time, and so probably wasn't bothered by her usual style — but that caused Aunt Penny to make a comment about “well I can see why it took her so long to catch his eye” which Gran had found extremely amusing. He had given up after that, shuffling off with an apologetic glance and a muttered excuse about making sure that his brother was alive.

Then, it was her teeth — which she was only ever self-conscious about when she was here, go figure — and Gran saying that she would, of course, be happy to pay for braces, why Lyra never cared enough to get them for her herself, _sigh_ , she would never know. Jyn knew — because neither she nor Lyra nor the dentist had ever thought that there was anything wrong with them, certainly not worth the expense and hassle of braces. It was just that they weren't perfect.

Her hair wasn't perfect, her clothes weren't perfect, her features weren't perfect — she dreaded, with every fiber of her being, the moment when someone asked her about the NASA internship. She'd always had that, she could always fall back on, _yeah fine I'm no Audrey Hepburn but I'm doing really well in my classes and on-track for a great career —_  but… not this time.

( _She is the most beautiful woman I've ever seen —_  but it was just a line. Fifty weeks out of the year, she didn't care if men found her beautiful, but, _God_ , they all just made such a big _deal_ about it.)

All of which led to _it_ starting — the slow, creeping feeling that they were all _right_ about her. Because, while they believed this relationship was real, it wasn't _—_  she had not, in fact, caught his eye, and… maybe they were right, maybe she should —

She bit her tongue. It was stupid, that she let them get to her like this, but…

“I'm gonna go check on Reid,” she snapped, standing sharply and making for the stairs, but before she got to them, Cassian and Bodhi started back down. It was probably the first time her heart had ever sank upon seeing either of them.

“Is there any breakfast left?” Bodhi asked, making an apparent point to speak loud enough that Gran could hear him and might shift focus, but it was too late for that kind of damage control.

“Some scones,” Jyn replied, attempting to be normal, “and coffee.”

“You all right?” Cassian asked in a low voice, and she shrugged.

“Business as usual,” she answered, matching his volume. “I'm gonna go with Mum into the city to finish shopping,” she said, louder, and immediately regretted, because —

“Oh, that sounds lovely!” Aunt Penny said brightly. “Oh, Mum, we should all go!”

Even Bodhi faltered, glancing at them in discomfort. But it was too late to take the words back.

“I'll only slow you down,” Gran replied, with a warm smile, “but you and the boys should all go!”

Her brief moment of relief at Gran’s refusal went ice-cold. Aunt Penny’s kids were Garrett and Chad and Piers, and if Aunt Penny was coming, Aunt Lizzie would certainly join, and bring along her kids, Chet and Ferguson. Aunt Tilda might agree to come, simply to save Lyra’s sanity, but it really depended on how charitable she was feeling since she always did her shopping months in advance, and with Reid out of commission, the one semi-competent link between the two cliques of cousins wasn't going to be available to smooth the worst of it over.

Mum was going to kill her.

“Sounds fun,” Bodhi said, with a slightly-desperate smile and eyes that shrieked obscenities at her.

 _Welcome to the family, Cassian_ , she thought bitterly. _May as well jump right in_.

.

“How did it come to this?” Lyra asked in a low, haunted voice, as they got out of the cab at Oxford Street. It was a question Cassian had been asking himself, too.

It was like, everything was fine, then he left for fifteen minutes and somehow lost the tide — Jyn was upset, presumably at something her grandmother and/or aunt had said, and then they were all going to London to shop with all the people she hated. And no part of him wanted to go shopping in London, least of all his wallet, but the look in Jyn’s eyes had made him agree without hesitation.

This place, and these people, made her miserable. Kent had admitted, upon showing up in one of the many spare rooms where they were putting Reid to sleep it off, that Gran and Aunt Penny had “sort of ganged up on” Jyn and he'd tried to help but only made it worse. Cassian and Bodhi had disentangled themselves from the situation as fast as they could, but apparently not fast enough.

“Gran and Aunt Penny found out,” Jyn replied, cringing, “and it just sort of… went downhill from there.”

“ _How_ did they _—_  Penelope, lovely to see you!” Lyra said, with forced brightness, giving her sister a hug and a kiss on each cheek as she got out of her own cab. “We barely got the chance to speak yesterday!”

“We can break off from the group,” Cassian murmured to Jyn, who glanced sideways at him. “There's too many of us to stay together.”

“Yes,” she replied fervently, grabbing him by the arm. “Yes, _please_.”

“Uh-oh,” someone said from behind them, and both Jyn and Bodhi winced. “Looks like the lovebirds are trying to sneak off. Can't let that happen, can we?”

Cassian glanced behind him _—_  and, damn, but Jyn had _nailed_ it, he really was the worst Tinder profile imaginable, complete with the soul patch and popped collar, it was… almost impressive. He looked like the kind of guy who wrote terrible books on how to woo women. “You must be Garrett,” he replied, with a tense smile.

“In the flesh,” Garrett answered cheerfully. “Casanova, right?”

He bit back a groan, and Jyn buried her face in her hands. So Garrett was one of _those_ people, who weren't very witty but truly believed they had a future in comedy, and anyone who disagreed was an idiot or oversensitive. He knew how to deal with them, if he had to, because basically half of his graduating class had been that sort of person, but he really, really hated doing it all the same.

Ah well. Jyn hated this guy, anyway, so it wasn’t like she’d be upset if he didn’t make friends.

“Ha,” he deadpanned, absolutely stone-faced. “I’ve never heard that one before.”

Garrett’s smile faltered a bit, but he recovered quickly. “I’m just messing,” he said, throwing an arm around Cassian’s shoulders. “You’re dating my cousin, so obviously you’re a bit touched in the head, yeah?”

Cassian blinked, and made up his mind. “I’m sorry,” he said, with a bit of a smile and a vague indication to himself. “I don’t really know British slang. Touched in the head?”

Bodhi, now behind Garrett, gave him a suspicious look, but this was something Cassian was good at — dealing with assholes — and this was a pretty much foolproof tactic: make them explain themselves, all the way down, until they couldn’t escape from the crushing shame of their own bad jokes.

“Oh, right,” Garrett replied. “Well, it just means… nutters, you know? Crazy.”

“Why would dating Jyn mean that I’m crazy?” he asked, the picture of unamused innocence. Bodhi bit his lip and glanced away; Jyn looked sideways at him without raising her head from her hands.

“Well, because… I mean,” Garrett floundered for a moment, then rolled his eyes. “It’s just a joke, that’s all. Just taking the piss out of her, you know?”

“Oh,” he said flatly. “It wasn’t funny.”

It worked; Garrett was now so thoroughly uncomfortable that he walked away with a vague mutter about _nice to meet you too, prick_ , but Cassian genuinely could not care less. Jyn looked relieved.

“Nice one,” Kent said, joining them and tugging his coat tighter around his chest. “My strategy is a little different, but that was a good play.”

“You have a strategy?” Jyn asked, and Kent glanced at her.

“Reid taught me how to do a _killer_ Fran Drescher impersonation,” he replied, smirking. “He went green and hasn’t spoken to me since. It’s been a whole new world.”

“So, your strategy is basically…” Bodhi mused, “take whatever trait of yours he finds most offensive, turn it up to eleven, and rub his face in it?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Same concept,” Cassian replied, shrugging and glancing at Jyn, who had apparently forgotten her gloves and was trying to use friction to warm up her hands. He wouldn’t have done it in New York — although he’d often considered it — but he was supposed to be her boyfriend here, and so… he reached out and wrapped his hands around her frigid ones. She hesitated, then took a step closer to him, and Kent smiled; he didn’t dare look at her. It had been awkward enough to wake up wrapped around her this morning, although she hadn't mentioned it and he was pretty sure she hadn't been awake yet. “Make him feel so uncomfortable that he leaves you alone.”

“All right,” Lyra declared, looking over the group. “There are _way_ too many of us to stick together, so why don’t we just agree to meet back up somewhere for tea in a couple hours?”

“Sounds good,” Kent replied, loudly. “We’re gonna hit Carnaby Street,” he added, indicating to him, Jyn, and Bodhi, and then, under his breath, “since I doubt any of us can afford the _peanuts_ on this street.”

“Kent, I can’t afford the peanuts _anywhere_ in London,” Jyn muttered, taking another (shivering) step closer to him. He tried for a second to ignore it, but… it wasn't like he'd ever been able to ignore her, anyway, so he simply gave up and wrapped his arms around her entirely. It was the sort of thing he wouldn’t have thought twice about — it was pretty much just a hug, and this, he _had_ done before in New York — but now he _was_ thinking twice about it. “Why don’t we go to a mall,” she went on, slightly muffled, her voice vibrating in his chest, “somewhere _inside?_ ”

“Because Aunt Penny wanted to stick around Oxford Street,” Bodhi replied for Kent. “And we can’t go _that_ far.”

“How far is it?” Cassian asked, and Kent shrugged.

“Ten minute walk, maybe.”

“Think we can find a clothes shop on the way?” Bodhi asked, eyeing Jyn a bit warily. “I think _somebody_ didn’t check the weather before she left the house.”

“Piss off,” Jyn grumbled.

.

Between Kent steering them away from the rest of the family and Cassian gleefully alienating Garrett (as well as helping her to warm up, couldn’t forget that), the day had almost actually been salvaged; since Garrett didn’t want to deal with “Jyn’s humorless twat of a boyfriend,” he’d split off from their group with his brothers and favorite cousins, leaving the four sisters (since Tilda had, in fact, taken pity on Lyra) to go one way, and the four of them to go another.

They would meet back up for tea at a little cafe that Aunt Penny swore by, which probably meant she'd be paying £10 for a cup of Earl Grey, but that was three hours in the future.

After a quick stop in a department store, for a scarf, a pair of gloves and a pair of earmuffs, since Jyn had not, as Bodhi predicted, checked the weather before leaving — although she insisted that, _also_ , women’s clothes were never warm enough _anyway_ and it was usually colder in New York than in London, so she’d had no reason to expect a cold snap on Christmas Eve — they spent the whole afternoon doing the sort of “shopping” that both picky gift-givers (Bodhi) and poor grad students (Jyn) usually excelled at, which involved many stores and few purchases.

“Ugh,” Bodhi grumbled, in the sixth store they’d stopped into. “Why is Dad so freaking hard to shop for?”

“Because there’s nothing he needs,” Jyn answered, glancing over a display of _gifts for him_ , little boxes with cologne and shaving cream, the sort of thing she always got for Garrett, because there were few better ways to say _I neither know you nor care to find out anything about you_ than a completely impersonal gift box. For the cousins she didn’t know well but also didn’t hate, she relied firmly on gift cards, but Garrett (and Chad) were special, and deserved something truly, offensively useless.

She took great pleasure in finding the worst colognes in New York and London to gift them with, to ensure that they never got anything of value from her, ever.

Cassian had once asked her why she didn’t just buy them nothing, but she had argued that that sent the message that she couldn’t _afford_ gifts for everyone — leading to condescending “understanding” and snide remarks behind her back — rather than the message that she _could_ get them something, but _deliberately_ chose something that they would hate yet feel obligated to thank her for.

He had seemed baffled at the time, but she felt like, after meeting Garrett, he would better understand her motives.

It turned out that she was right.

“Look at this,” he said, walking up to her with a little cologne “tester” strip in hand. She took it, sniffed it, and recoiled violently. “Awful, no?”

“Where did you find this?” she asked, grinning. He returned the smile, and her stomach flipped, which she determined to ignore, as usual. “It’s _perfect_ for Garrett.”

Bodhi looked up and took it curiously, giving it a sniff and making a horrified face, then passing it on to Kent, who had a similar reaction. “Yeah,” Bodhi said with a cough, “it is _exactly_ the kind of thing you like to get Garrett.”

“I love it,” she replied eagerly, then glanced at Cassian, who looked deeply amused. “Don’t ever make me smell that again.”

“I think it’s the worst cologne I’ve ever encountered,” he said.

“It’s _so bad_ ,” she gushed. “We have to get it.”

Cassian laughed, and indicated toward the selection of colognes. “It was over here.”

After purchasing the terrible cologne — which was, even to Jyn’s wallet, gloriously cheap, it was like the Taaka of cologne, she loved it — they hit another couple of stores, and Bodhi eventually settled on a cutesy tie for their dad, albeit with a huge sigh and the definite sense that it was lacking something. It had robots printed on it, though, so Galen would at least get a chuckle out of it, and (knowing their father) probably wear it pretty often.

Jyn had gotten him a framed Carl Sagan quote — the “pale blue dot” monologue over the picture of Earth — which might have been a better gift if she hadn’t gotten him the _Cosmos_ series last year, and a fancy copy of the book the year before that.

(So what if she had a theme? He always loved it — he was such an astronomy nerd that her childhood nickname had been “stardust” — so she was gonna milk it until the cow ran dry.

Probably this was the bottom of it, and she’d have to come up with something new next year. But that was next year.)

They were the second group to arrive at the cafe, after the four sisters, who had already commandeered the couches in a nook a little way off from the main entrance. Considering that it was Christmas Eve, the cafe was doing pretty brisk business, but the cold and the sky and the man on the news were all threatening a snowy night, so it looked like it was starting to die off.

She decided to eschew her British roots and order herself a coffee — regular, but with a shot of cinnamon and room for cream — but just as she was reaching into her bag for her wallet, Cassian indicated to her.

“Put hers on mine,” he said casually, and the teller nodded. Jyn almost refused, then caught herself — Aunt Penny was watching, and she would _absolutely_ say something about _I can’t believe he let her buy her own drink_ because that was the kind of thing that ruffled Aunt Penny’s (and Gran’s) feathers. Instead, she leaned against him.

“I’ll get yours next time,” she murmured, and he gave her a look.

“It comes out to, what, three dollars?” he replied, shrugging and making a show of kissing her on the temple, which short-circuited every thought in her brain. “Don’t worry about it.”

“You two are so cute,” Kent said, pushing past them to order something for himself.

She rolled her eyes and shoved him forward, but thanked him in her head for something to do with her hands, and distract herself from the weight of Cassian’s hand on the small of her back and the ghost of his kiss on her temple and the sudden rising realization that they would be here for New Year’s which meant…

Maybe she could just, like… run away. Just start running and not stop until she made it to, oh, Romania, maybe, sounded like a good start.

 _Dammit, Bodhi_.

 _You can thank me later_ , what a _jackass_. He definitely hadn’t forgotten about the whole concept of a New Year’s Kiss when he’d suggested this, but Jyn — who had never in her life had someone to kiss on New Year’s Eve, nor the inclination to find one — had not even considered it when she’d agreed to this ridiculous plan. The room-sharing she’d been fully-prepared for, the bed-sharing she’d pretty much expected, the public displays of affection she had seen coming even if she’d underestimated how she’d react to them, but this —

She wondered what their relationship would be, when they got back to New York.

.

He hadn’t actually, really, entirely _meant_ to kiss her, even on the head like he had — it was just… he was supposed to be her boyfriend, supposed to act affectionate, and so he was doing what felt natural, with a little bit of embellishment. He often was kind of, well, a bit more tactile with Jyn than he was with his other friends, but it was — she invited it, getting up close to him and touching him on the arm and laying her head on his shoulder and a lot of little things that weren’t exactly affectionate and definitely not inappropriate or unwanted, and he had always just kind of… responded in kind.

So it wasn’t very much, and not out of his way, to turn those little gestures into shows of affection — placing a hand on her back, pulling her close when she was shivering, taking her hand instead of her arm when moving through crowded streets. It didn’t require much effort or thought.

The kiss to her temple had simply felt natural. It was what he, were he actually her boyfriend, would have done in the situation, and so he had, without thinking about it, done it. He wasn’t actively cataloguing “how to make them believe I’m in love with her” so much as just… being a bit _more_ than usual, a bit more affectionate, a bit more open, a bit more honest, and…

It was a little disconcerting, that that was all it took to fully convince them.

In… multiple ways.

He tried to picture how he would have approached this if it had been Leia rather than Jyn, but the thought of being affectionate with Leia made him feel uncomfortable, awkward. He really didn’t think that anyone would have bought it.

It was one of those things in the back of his mind, one of those questions that he knew the answer to, if he dared open that door, and he did not dare open that door: why it was easy with Jyn but unfathomable with Leia, why it felt natural, why it was so convincing. Instead, he Decided — with some force — that it was just because he’d been friends with Jyn for so long, and through so much.

Right.

(He’d been friends with Leia for almost as long as — he wasn’t going to think about it.)

It was very hard not to think about it with her sitting on the couch next to him, sitting with her legs underneath her, at a casual angle so her back was pressed against his side, a cup of coffee clutched in both her hands, and his arm around her. He was sure they looked like two people in a still-newish relationship who couldn't get enough of each other.

Cassian wanted — desperately, with every screaming thought in his mind — for her to _not_ be pressed up against him like this… until the moment when she actually got up and made a comment about getting biscuits for later.

He told himself it was just the cold air coming from the… heater.

(Shit.)

She certainly seemed to be in a good mood, but then, her asshole cousin and his posse weren't yet drunk enough (according to Jyn) to try and pick any fights, and her aunts were thoroughly engrossed in their own conversation. So, by both metrics — keeping her family off her back and convincing everyone that they were an item — the day had been a complete success.

That he just kind of wanted to die over.

“So, that was cute,” Bodhi said in a low voice, and Cassian glanced at him and shrugged with forced nonchalance. For the moment, with Kent in the bathroom and the rest if the group engaged, it was safe to be honest. Ish.

“It sells the act,” he muttered, with a passable attempt at being casual, and Bodhi snorted.

“Okay, Ptolemy,” he said, then smirked to himself. Cassian tried, and failed, to make sense of that.

“What?”

“Ptolemy,” he repeated. “King of Egypt after Alexander the Great conquered it. Started the Ptolemaic dynasty.”

He blinked, but it still didn’t make any kind of sense. “ _What?_ ”

“The Nile,” he explained, a bit exasperated. “I was… King of Denial, that was the joke. You’re in denial.”

He gaped.

“That is the _worst_ joke I’ve ever heard,” he said, aghast. “On… so many levels.”

“I thought it was clever,” Bodhi said, shrugging. “And you’re not, ha, denying it.”

“I am not — I still — Ptolemy?” he spluttered. “That is who you think of? Not even — King Tut, or… _Ptolemy?_ ”

“I thought every kid had an Ancient Egypt phase,” he said, like that was an explanation. But then, Bodhi was often a font of totally useless trivia, and significantly worse puns. “You’re saying you didn’t have one?”

“I — “ he started, then stopped, shaking his head and sighing. “No, I was obsessed with the Aztecs. I am not in denial.”

“So says everyone who has ever been in denial.”

“I’m — “ he started, but cut himself off as Jyn walked up, a little pastry box in her hands, glancing between the two of them.

“What are we talking about?” she asked, and Bodhi, without missing a beat —

“Cassian did not have an Ancient Egypt phase,” he said, like this was a crime. “I thought every kid had an Ancient Egypt phase.”

“Seriously?” she said, turning to him after setting the box on the little table in front of them, looking bemused but kind of affectionate. “I had a Cleopatra costume when I was a kid. I got a fake snake to go with it, but Mum said that was too morbid and took it away.”

In spite of the fact that he was still kind of off-kilter from Bodhi’s terrible joke and also the affection in her eyes, Cassian laughed out loud; he could just _see_ her, tiny-Jyn in a Cleopatra costume, arguing with her mother over a rubber snake. It was a goddamned _adorable_ mental image. Bodhi laughed as well, saying, “Oh I remember that, you were _so_ mad at her.”

“I was! I thought it was the best idea ever.” To Cassian, who was struggling to regain his composure, not helped by her sitting back down and placing a hand on her shoulder: “You didn’t have an Ancient Egypt phase?”

“No,” he replied, shaking his head and trying to act natural. “I had an Aztec phase.”

“They were definitely a lot bloodier,” she said, and he smiled at her.

“That was very appealing to little-me,” he admitted, somewhat sheepishly, but she only laughed. Maybe he was imagining it, but she sounded a little nervous. “I visited Mexico City with my godfather when I was ten,” he went on. “We went to the ruins, I was very proud of being able to pronounce Tenochtitlan.”

“Wait, that’s how that’s pronounced?” Kent asked, rejoining the group, appearing to startle Jyn, and he nodded. “I don’t think I ever even tried. I took one look at the word and gave up.”

“It’s not so hard,” he replied.

“Looks like we’re about to head back,” Bodhi said, nodding to where the rest of the group was steadily gathering their bags and moseying toward the exit. “It _is_ getting late.”

“I think it’s supposed to snow tonight,” Jyn replied, tugging her scarf around her neck and pulling away from him. “Doubt it’ll stick, though.”

He didn’t really want to go back. On-edge as it made him to sit with her curled up like a cat against him, he didn’t want her to stop, didn’t want to return to her grandparents’ house and run interference between her and her family again, this time sitting at a formal dinner table where there was no escape. He just wanted to stay right here.

He decided not to dwell on why.

.

The whole day had gone… smoothly. In fact, Jyn was even sort of… happy to be here, which was bizarre and unfamiliar. She’d even bought biscuits, enough for everyone, in several different kinds. While Gran had certainly made entirely too much cake, and Aunt Lizzie probably had seven kinds of pie stacked up in one of the fridges, Jyn _liked_ biscuits.

It was one of the little things she’d done plenty of times before for her friends in New York, and they all knew her tastes with unfortunate intimacy — anything with peanut butter was an absolute yes, anything with actual nuts was a _hell no_ , and she had _strong_ feelings about the blasphemy that led lost souls to put _raisins_ in biscuits — but her extended family knew nothing of.

(Cassian — by _far_ the best cook out of the entire group, everything he touched turned to gold — had once made her peanut butter biscuits _with_ raisins, which he’d told her were chocolate chips, and she had refused to speak to him for a week.)

It was rare, and a sign that she was in a much better mood than either her surroundings or sleep deprivation should really have allowed for, that she had any desire whatsoever to share anything of herself with the people here.

(Strange, the difference a single person could make.)

Unfortunately, dinner was looming, and after spending all day isolated from most of the family, they probably weren’t going to let her get away with doing it over dinner, too.

At least they’d given up — several years ago, when the brood officially became “entirely too many small children to try and corral into a sanctuary without inviting divine retribution” — on the Christmas Eve services that had once been the bane of Jyn’s existence. Not so much because of the religious aspect, as it was the god-awful dresses she was always forced into for the occasion, being the only granddaughter and thus the only doll upon which to model the entire family’s cache of “adorable” outfits.

One had been modeled after a poinsettia, apparently cost Aunt Penny _a lot_ of money, and Jyn had, in a fit of childish defiance that she in no way regretted or felt remorse for, poured the sacramental wine all over herself because she’d hated it so much. She suspected that Aunt Penny had yet to forgive her.

Theirs was the last cab to arrive at the house, where Reid was waiting for them, arms crossed.

“I can’t believe you gits went to London without me,” he growled, before any of them could even comment on him being conscious, finally.

“How much _did_ you drink last night?” Bodhi countered. Reid only scowled.

“You _left_ me,” he started testily, stepping forward and poking Bodhi in the chest, “alone in the house with Gran and Papa and a lot of small children who _hate_ me.”

“Where was Dad?” Jyn asked, and he threw up his hands in frustration.

“Your bitch-ass father disa-fucking-ppeared on me!” he exploded, and Jyn bit her lip, trying to fight back a laugh. “He went “fishing” — since _when_ the _hell_ does he _fish? —_  and left me alone to deal with the incessant _noise_ because he didn’t wanna put up with his own in-laws! Do you have _any_ idea how long and painful my afternoon has been?”

“It was completely self-inflicted,” Kent drawled, and Reid rounded on him.

“Gran spent _an hour_ telling me about her irritable bowel syndrome! An hour!” he cried, voice breaking, and Jyn finally gave up and burst out laughing. “I had to sit there, with the _worst goddamn hangover of my life_ , listening to an eighty-five year old woman tell me about _her bowel movements!_ Self-inflicted, my arse! This is _your_ fault!”

“Cassian, meet Reid,” Kent said evenly.

“An _hour_ , Kent!”

“Properly, this time,” he went on, as though he hadn’t been interrupted. “Not when he’s fully knockered in the loo.”

Reid was vibrating with anger, so Jyn opened the box and handed him a biscuit. It was so unexpected that he completely froze, looking at the pastry like it was a bomb. She sighed and waved it at him.

“It’s not poisoned, it’s ginger.”

He blinked several times, then took it uncertainly. “Who are you and what have you done with Jyn?”

“If you don’t want it, I’ll take it back,” she snapped.

Reid took a bite of the biscuit, made a face like it was better than he expected it to be, then leaned in closer to Kent, and stage-whispered, “Is this… is Jyn _happy?_ Is this what Jyn is like when she’s happy? A bundled-up biscuit-fairy who actually laughs at things?”

“I know, it’s unsettling,” Kent replied, at full volume, and Jyn glared at him, but he shrugged. “I keep waiting for her to hit somebody.”

“It’s still early,” Jyn cut in, with a pointed look that said she was considering hitting them, and then stalked into the house.

That was the unexpected downside of this good mood: it would throw into relief how upset she usually was here and everyone would realize that no, Jyn was _not_ by nature a foul-tempered and sullen misanthrope who was impossible to speak to. She wasn’t exactly bubbly or extroverted, but it was only in this house that she had a “punch first, ask questions later” policy.

And they’d probably pin it all on _he makes her so happy!_ without ever realizing how awful _they_ usually were to her.

Which… Cassian did tend to have a balancing effect on her, that was true, but it wasn’t — it wasn’t like he made her a _different_ person, just a more _patient_ one.

(And another thing she hadn’t considered: the next time she came here, without him. Going back to being their verbal punching bag, only with the added bonus of _I can’t believe you ran him off!_ to go along with it.)

She couldn’t keep thinking like this; it had been too good a day to douse the cheer with the thought of the future.

“I got biscuits,” she said as she walked into the kitchen, with a somewhat-forced smile, and set the pastry box on the kitchen island. “A few different kinds.”

A couple of people did look interested — Piers immediately grabbed three, it seemed the munchies were hitting him hard, and the twins were promised one each of the ones with chocolate candies, but after dinner — but Aunt Penny gave her a distasteful look.

“You thought we didn’t have enough food?” she asked, and Jyn bit her tongue and made a show of shrugging, taking one out of the box.

“I like biscuits,” she replied. “I thought I’d get some of my favorites to share with everyone.”

Aunt Penny looked taken aback in the same way that Reid had when she’d offered him one. Gran, standing by the oven, looked both shocked and delighted.

“Well, look at that,” Gran said, a smile coming over her face. “Our prickly little pear is finally softening up!”

Jyn twitched. “It’s just biscuits,” she muttered uncomfortably. “It’s not that big a deal.”

“It is coming from you,” David replied, catching little Tom by the hand without looking. “Your father said not until after dinner,” he said sharply, and when Tom went away, pouting, he turned back to Jyn. “You go out of your way to show everyone how much you don’t care about us.”

She looked up, thrown off by his words, and even more by her aunt and grandmother nodding. “I do not!” she spluttered. “I mean, I — I care, it’s not… nobody ever wants anything I have to give.”

An uncomfortable silence fell, and Jyn felt cold, no longer wanting the biscuit in her hand but unwilling to give up and put it back. Luckily, she was saved by the arrival of the rest of the cab and Reid, who was still muttering about not forgiving any of them.

The relief she felt upon seeing Cassian was honestly a little embarrassing.

David seemed like he was about to say something, but Jyn didn't want to hear it, instead turning and leaning against the island. Cassian raised an eyebrow; it was like he could tell that things had started to go downhill.

(God, he was probably so irritated by now, couldn't leave her alone for five minutes without the vultures descending.)

(Granted, he'd never seemed irritated before when he'd had to watch her back, in bad parts of the city or when she would call him to come pick her up because she'd overdone it. But he was so hard to read, that he could easily have been cursing everything about her and she'd be none the wiser. He could secretly hate her, for all she knew.)

(Then again, she reminded herself, Cassian was not the sort of person who pretended to like people he hated, unless forced to do so by circumstance. He'd had a reputation — multiple people had warned her about it before she'd actually met him — as being completely frigid, to the point that Kes Dameron had coined him the nickname “Antarctic Andor.” He wasn’t afraid to completely shut people he didn’t want in his life, out of it. So probably he didn't hate her. He wouldn't be here at all if he hated her.)

“They don't waste time, do they?” he murmured, and she wrinkled her nose, mostly at her own transparency. “I’m sorry.”

“It's not your fault,” she replied, just as softly. “I think dinner’s not far off, right?” she added, louder, glancing half-over her shoulder. Gran nodded.

“In about a half-hour. You should get cleaned up and properly dressed.”

Jyn, who felt like — besides maybe needing to wash her hands — she already _was_ cleaned-up for dinner, bit her tongue again. It was an out. She should take it as excuse to get away from everyone for a half-hour.

“Is there a dress code?” Cassian asked, seemingly genuine in his confusion. Gran scoffed.

“Well, not exactly,” she replied, patting Jyn patronizingly on the shoulder. “But I do prefer that people dress appropriately.”

 _It’s just a family dinner_ , she wanted to snap. _There’s no need for nice clothes!_

But it wouldn’t work; it never had in the past, and it wouldn’t now.

“Oh,” Cassian said. “I didn’t realize. I apologize.”

“Well, I was more talking to Jyn,” Gran clarified, and Cassian blinked.

“What’s inappropriate about her outfit?” he asked, and Jyn held her breath; but Cassian was _good_ at this. It sounded like a genuine question, not an attempt to expose her crap. Gran hesitated.

“Well, for one, she’s wearing denim,” she landed on. Cassian paused, seemingly waiting for her to go on, and when she didn’t, he looked from Jyn to himself and then to Gran.

“So am I,” he said bluntly.

By now it seemed like everyone in the kitchen was watching, waiting to see how this turned out — Cassian had earned a lot of goodwill this morning, and Gran was already inclined to like him for being “willing” to date Jyn, but if he pushed it much farther, it would become apparent that he had an agenda. Jyn was too tired, and it had been an exhausting rollercoaster of a day, at any rate, and so she decided to step in and put this brewing storm on hold.

“It’s fine,” she cut in, and he turned to her. “I wore these trousers yesterday, and they’re pretty old, anyway. I’ve got something else in mind to wear tonight.”

It seemed to mollify Gran, and the tension eased; it was strange, to Jyn, to be the one easing the tension for once. Usually it was the other way around — Jyn picking a fight and Cassian smoothing things over. She wondered why he cared enough to actually dig into this, instead of just letting that sleeping dog lie.

He watched her carefully for another moment, although she deliberately didn’t look at him, instead turning and making for the stairs, before he seemed to let it go, and followed her.


	3. act three

like the river flows surely to the sea

.

.

“So, tell us about yourself!” one of Jyn’s aunts, whose name he couldn’t recall, asked, leaning forward eagerly, if somewhat unsteadily. Jyn, Bodhi, and himself had all been stuck at the “adults’ table” with Lyra, her sisters, brother, and parents, either because the aunts and uncles never got to see them and wanted to chat (according to Gran) or because putting Jyn and Garrett at a table together would result in Jyn leaping across said table and/or flipping it over to beat the snot out of him, which had happened several times before (according to Jyn and Bodhi). “Where are you from?”

Cassian blinked; he’d personally seen this woman — the youngest, apparently — down three glasses of wine with her salad and keep going strong through dinner, so it… probably was an innocent question. People asked that question all the time. “Ah… New York,” he replied, with a bit of a smile. “Upstate, but I moved to the city for University.”

“Which is where you met Jyn?” another aunt — Tilda, he was pretty sure it was Tilda, if for no other reason than the sidelong glance she threw her sister, which told him that she was deliberately derailing the conversation away from the wreck the drunk sister was apparently steering straight for — cut in.

“Yes,” he answered. “We were assigned as lab partners.”

“He saved my arse in Biophysics,” Jyn added, laughing with some force. “I _really_ shouldn’t have taken that as a sophomore.”

“You were _born_ in Upstate New York?” the drunk aunt asked, apparently unwilling to let it go. He forced a smile; Jyn cringed.

“I was actually born in the city,” he said, with more patience than he really felt. “When my parents died, my sister and I moved upstate with our godfather.”

Usually the _when my parents died_ was enough to put people off pressing any further; it wasn’t something he was ever really inclined to discuss, but most people didn’t ask questions about it.

Usually.

Luckily, Bodhi — who had almost definitely had more than his fair share of this exact conversation — saw an opening and dived for it.

“How is Sylvia, by the way?” he asked, with slightly forced cheer. “Still married to that guy you hate?”

“I don't _hate_ him,” he sighed, more dramatically than was really necessary. “I just think it's appalling that I live in another _time zone_ and I changed Marina’s diapers more than he did.”

“Wait, really?” Lyra asked, raising an eyebrow and glancing at Galen, who snorted. “That's grounds for divorce, in my opinion.”

“She says he's been better about it with Sofia. I'll believe it when I see it.”

“How old are your nieces?” Tilda asked.

“Three and nine months,” he answered, smiling a bit.

“That's a wild ride at that age,” she replied, looking down the table at her own kids with a fond smile. “Fun, but exhausting. How old is she?”

“Twenty-six,” he said. “Two years younger than me.”

“And already married with children,” Penny started, glancing at Jyn, who stiffened, and Cassian cut in before she could _really_ get going.

“We didn't really have any family but each other, growing up,” he said hastily. “She always wanted a big family, lots of kids.”

“Braver woman than I,” Tilda laughed, a bit forced. “Two was just about all I could handle.”

“I've just heard so many stories about people crossing — “ the drunk aunt cut in, and Lyra buried her face in her hand.

“Jesus _Christ_ , Lizzie,” she snapped. “He answered your bloody question the first time.”

“Well, it's just — it's just the, the sort of, well _elephant_ in the room, isn't it?” Lizzie slurred. “It's an _issue_ in America.”

If the woman weren't three sheets to the wind, he'd ask her what, exactly, she meant by that, and watch her squirm. But she was already a whole bottle down, so even if it was coherent, it wouldn't be at all entertaining, even by that most scant definition of entertainment.

“My parents were working toward citizenship when they died,” he said shortly, and Penny raised an eyebrow.

“How long could that _possibly_ take?” she asked, just shy of mocking, and he bit back a nasty response; Jyn, next to him, had not raised her eyes from her plate since Lizzie had started up again, and appeared deeply embarrassed. But, in all honesty, he’d dealt with worse, for worse reasons.

“I think the average is ten years,” he replied tensely. “Sometimes much longer.”

“It took me twelve,” Galen, of all people, chimed in, and the entire table’s attention swung toward him. “Not that anyone’s ever asked me about it,” he added, with a pointed glance at Penny, who at least had the self-awareness to look embarrassed. Cassian fought the mad urge to laugh. Bodhi appeared to be struggling deeply to do the same.

“Oh,” Lizzie stammered, blinking rapidly. “I… Um.”

“Well, how about dessert?” Penny asked the table at large, voice higher-pitched than usual, in a transparent attempt to change the subject, now that she was the one who’d been put on the spot by Galen. It was kind of satisfying.

“Oh, there’s cake on the island,” Gran piped up, from the other end of the table. It was both the good and bad thing about so many people being under one roof — one end of the table had no idea what the other was talking about and so couldn’t offer their opinions, but that meant that every bit of news and gossip had to be repeated multiple times, for every group.

“I’m so sorry,” Jyn muttered, picking up her plate and making for the kitchen. He shrugged, and followed.

“Better to get it out of the way now,” he replied, matching her tone.

Jyn cringed; she seemed to think that he was having an absolutely awful time and it was all her fault that her family was being… well, kind of exactly what he’d expected from a bunch of rich white people. Penny avoided his eye the entire time they were in the kitchen putting dirty dishes in the sink, studiously cutting slices of cake with such deliberate care that it was almost worrying. Jyn ignored the cake and got a cookie; Cassian took small but significant pleasure in cheerfully taking two pieces of cake and making a point to thank Penny for cutting it.

“What’s the second slice for?” Jyn asked, and he glanced at her.

“Watch,” he murmured, and offered the second slice of cake to Jyn’s grandmother — whose dishes had been cleared by Penny, naturally — who smiled broadly and took it.

“You’re such a gentleman!” she replied. “Thank you so much!”

“The lady of the house should have the first piece,” he said, all smiles and charm, before sitting back down next to a very confused Jyn. Under his breath, he explained: “Your aunt’s about to come in here with a slice for her.”

Some people — people like Penny, like Garrett, like Lizzie — were so ridiculously predictable that it was almost cheating to take advantage of them. Penny was the one closest to her mother, who liked to sit with her and, according to Kent, gang up on Jyn with her. Penny would take it as her place, being the favored daughter, to bring her mother dessert, as she had taken it as her place to clear her mother’s dishes; she was probably gunning for the largest share of the inheritance.

It was petty, but Penny irritated the hell out of him.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, Penny arrived in the dining room with two slices of cake, stopping short when she saw that Gran already had one.

“Oh,” she said bluntly. “You’ve already — oh.”

Jyn was biting her lip hard, trying not to laugh.

“Cassian brought it to me!” Gran replied brightly. “Isn’t he such a dear?”

“Yes,” Penny said, voice rising another octave as she looked at him and he smiled back, the picture of innocence. “He is, isn’t he? I’ll just… put this back, then.”

“I’m really glad you’re here,” Jyn choked, in a slightly-strained voice, as she hid her face in her hand to conceal her laughter, and he glanced at her, smiling much more genuinely.

.

Cassian’s subtle humiliation of Penny definitely worked to shut her up; following dessert, she’d immediately recused herself to the kitchen, where she was apparently so irritated that she didn’t let anyone help her clean up. Jyn was almost giddy over the whole thing.

It was the first time since she was about eight that she wasn’t being forced to clean the kitchen after dinner here, instead being able to sit with everyone on the couches and drink mulled wine and watch movies. And to make it better, Bodhi had won the draw for who got to pick what everyone watched tonight, and he’d gone for what he called “the greatest Christmas movie ever made”.

And, it… it all felt _nice_. For the first time in as long as she could remember, she was actually content on Christmas Eve, cozied up on one of couches in Cassian’s arms, watching Alan Rickman and his team take over Nakatomi Plaza. She probably didn’t really _have_ to be so cuddly, but in her defense, all the real couples were being cuddly like this, and, well… she _liked_ snuggling with him. He was warm and comfortable and had his arms around her, idly tracing circles on her hip in a way that was simultaneously soothing and _very not_ soothing.

She drifted off around the time that Bruce Willis had to walk on all the broken glass, head resting on his chest, his heartbeat in her ear.

The next thing she knew, he was shaking her awake, in their room.

“Jyn,” he said quietly. “Wake up.”

She sat up muzzily, looking around as he stepped away, rummaging through his suitcase for something. “Did you carry me here?” she asked, and he looked up.

“You’re not heavy,” he answered, as if that had been her concern. She didn’t press it.

“Sorry I fell asleep,” she muttered, stumbling to her feet and grabbing the first vaguely-pyjama-like clothing her hands landed on and making for the bathroom to change.

“Don’t worry about it,” he replied, shrugging like it really wasn’t anything. And… it wasn’t. She’d just… fallen asleep in his arms. Platonically. Because they were friends. And friends… did that sort of thing. Sometimes. At least somewhere, someone had, at some point, fallen asleep in their friend’s arms and it didn’t mean anything. Surely.

She cringed at her own thoughts, once she was safely on the other side of the door.

Like last night, he was already in bed by the time she walked back into the room, which was just fine by her, since she wasn’t entirely sure she could meet his eyes right now.

 _Get over it_ , she told herself. _He’s playing a part_.

And trailing on the end of that thought: _It’s only day one_.

Jyn crawled into the bed and tried to stay as far away from him as she could without being weird, but if he noticed, he didn’t give any indication, and might have already been asleep, or was at least feigning it masterfully.

She stared at the clock, red light reading 9:47 PM, with the little blinking colon, until she finally drifted back to sleep, around eleven.

Neither she nor Cassian had moved at all.

At some point in the middle of the night, something woke her up; what sounded like some drunk relative staggering down the hall to their room, judging from the crash and slurred cursing.

The clock said it was 1:25 AM, and Cassian was _definitely_ spooning with her this time.

She froze, eyes widening, and tried to turn it into a joke to herself —  _ha-ha, never would’ve guessed that old Antarctic Andor was a cuddler —_  but she was wide awake and _entirely_ too aware of the warmth of him pressed against her back, his arm around her, fingers laced with hers.

He was dead asleep, breathing even and slow on her shoulder, sending shivers down her spine.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, or — the drunk relative stumbled again, louder this time, and woke him up; she didn’t move a muscle, and barely breathed, as he shifted and turned away, presumably toward the door, then back to her.

She heard him whisper, _shit_ , and pull away from her carefully, as though afraid to wake her.

It was after three before she finally fell back asleep; dimly, although she wouldn’t ever admit it, she was disappointed that he hadn’t pulled her close to him again.

.

Christmas morning was a bit hazy, since he hadn’t exactly gotten a lot of sleep after waking up in the middle of the night wrapped around Jyn, again. He’d always known that he had a tendency to cuddle in his sleep, but he’d never before been in a position of being in bed with someone he wasn’t _supposed_ to be cuddling with, and it was absolutely mortifying.

It could have been worse, he thought to himself. There could have been morning wood. So. It wasn’t as bad as it _could_ have been.

On the other hand, if the person in the hall had woken Cassian up, they had almost definitely woken Jyn up, too. And she _wasn’t saying anything about it_ , which was almost worse than if she’d teased him.

He couldn’t say anything about it, because there was always a chance that she _hadn’t_ woken up, and he wasn’t about to admit to her that he had — twice, now — pulled her into his arms like a lover in the middle of the night, in his _sleep_. The best-case scenario would be that she laughed him out of the room; worst-case, she would get uncomfortable and ask him to sleep on the floor, and… he didn’t really want to sleep on the floor.

It was the same way that he hadn’t really wanted to leave the cafe, hadn’t wanted to wake her while the movie was playing. It was like… he didn’t want to return to reality. For those moments, when she was comfortable with him, touching him, wrapped up in his arms, it felt _real_ , and… he kind of… could get used to it.

It was stupid. Jyn was his best friend, he was here to keep her family off her back, and it wasn’t like they were even doing a whole lot of acting, just being themselves with a side of cuddling, there was… it was barely any different than any other time they’d hung out together. He was just… getting caught up in the act, that was all. It was hard to act like her boyfriend for hours and then suddenly shift gears into _just friends_ again. That was all there was to it.

Right.

“So, how did you and Jyn meet?” asked someone he was sure he had met but couldn’t recall the name of — a girl a little bit younger than Jyn, and, judging by the fact that she was also awkwardly sitting at the breakfast table while people opened gifts in the next room, probably someone’s girlfriend.

“We had a class together a few years ago,” he replied. “Lab partners.”

“Aww, that’s sweet,” she cooed, and he was a bit confused, because it didn’t strike him as being particularly sweet. “I’m Lydia,” she went on, holding out a hand to shake. “Chet’s girlfriend.”

“Right,” he said, trying to remember which one that was. “Cassian.”

“Oh, I know _you_ ,” she said, smiling brightly. “Everyone’s talking about you.”

“Are they?” he asked, increasingly uncomfortable. Lydia nodded.

“Jyn never brings anyone here,” she explained. “Half the family was convinced she was a lesbian, the other half just says that she’s a heinous bitch who can’t land one. Everyone was curious about you when Gran said you were coming, if you’d be ugly or blind or what.”

Cassian blinked; she’d said it so matter-of-fact, like no part of that had been ridiculously offensive.

“Is that so?” he said, because it was the only thing he could think of to say, besides _wow you’re all terrible people_.

“Mm,” she replied, nodding. “You’re much more attractive than anyone was expecting, except maybe Kent, but who cares what Kent thinks, he only cares about himself anyway. Chet thinks you’re a paid actor, but I’m not sure. Jyn’s pretty enough when she wants to be, and of course, girls like that are usually good at other things if you catch my meaning.”

The whole thing had been rattled off in one breath, and Cassian had hit his limit somewhere around _who cares what Kent thinks_.

“I can’t imagine why Jyn doesn’t like being here,” he said coolly. “You’re all so friendly and warm.”

His tone was unmistakable, and Lydia’s smile faltered. “I didn’t mean to offend,” she replied, sounding genuinely confused. He raised an eyebrow.

“You didn’t think that I would find any part of that offensive?” he asked. “Where you speculated if I was ugly or blind? Or the part where you said your boyfriend thinks I’m being paid to be here, or when you implied that I’m only with Jyn to get laid? Or where you called my girlfriend a heinous bitch?”

“Oh, I… I was just telling the truth,” she replied, and he tilted his head.

“I didn't ask,” he said.

Lydia clearly wasn’t used to people actually telling her when she’d crossed a line. She now looked as uncomfortable as he’d felt when she’d started.

“Oh,” she repeated, looking down and away. “I’m sorry.”

 _You’re not_ , he thought. _You’re just embarrassed_.

He was supposed to say something about _it’s fine_ , or _I forgive you_ , but Cassian was not that sort of person. “You should be,” he replied coldly, and she looked up at him, anger crossing over her face. “You looked me in the eyes and insulted me, my girlfriend, and one of the only people here who has been decent to either of us. She might let you get away with it,” he added, thinking of how Jyn had stopped him from taking her grandmother to task last night, “but I’m not that nice.”

“Oh,” she said again, nodding several times. “I get it now. Garrett was right, you’re _both_ awful. That’s why you’re together.”

He smiled acerbically. “If believing that makes you feel better, be my guest. Just stop talking.”

She stood up and swept out of the room, all huffing offense, but Cassian wasn’t bothered. Maybe ten minutes later, Kent walked into the kitchen, glancing behind him.

“What did you _say_ to Lydia?” he asked, with a bit of a laugh. “She’s been ranting to Garrett and Chet about how you and Jyn deserve each other for ten minutes.”

He shrugged. “She seemed to think I wouldn’t take offense to her calling Jyn a heinous bitch. Or if I did, I wouldn’t _say_ anything to her about it.”

“Yeah…” Kent mused, making a face. “I don’t think Lydia really _gets_ that other people have emotions.”

Cassian shrugged again and took a sip of his coffee. “Are you already done with opening presents?” he asked, and Kent scoffed, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

“Well, _I_ am,” he said. “The favored children have _mountains_ more to get through, but ever since I came out, I only get presents from about a quarter of the family. The rest of them pretend I don’t exist.”

“Does Bodhi get the same treatment?”

“Well, Bodhi is most precious human being on the planet,” Kent replied, taking a seat opposite him. “So they pretend he never came out at all. But, eh,” he went on, with a careless shrug. “Could be worse. They keep getting Jyn fluffy dresses and heels and self-help books. The whole family kills it at passive-aggressive gift-giving.”

“Why are they so…” he started, trying to find the word, but Kent provided it for him:

“Determined to make Jyn be something she’s not?” he suggested, and Cassian nodded. “She’s the only granddaughter,” he went on. “Aunt Penny and Aunt Lizzie both wanted daughters they could go dress shopping with and all that shit, and Gran wanted a granddaughter whose wedding she could host here, and even Uncle Rick wanted a daughter he could walk down the aisle. Aunt Lyra didn’t care if she had a boy or a girl, so of course she was the one who had the girl everybody else wanted, who doesn’t act anything like the daughters they imagined.”

“That’s… stupid,” he said, and Kent snorted.

“As Reid would say,” he sighed, “the straights are ridiculous.”

Cassian blinked. “I thought he was…”

“He is,” Kent replied. “He prides himself on being, and I quote, _an unproblematic ally_.”

“Jyn _did_ say he was kind of insufferable.”

“He means well,” Kent said. “He just tries too hard sometimes.”

“So, what does everyone do between opening presents and dinner?” he asked, because in his experience, opening presents took about ten minutes, then you went back to bed for a few hours, and either cooked food or argued with everyone over where you would be able to find food on Christmas, then had an early dinner and went back home.

“Socialize, mostly,” Kent replied. “Or cook. Watch sappy Christmas movies, or, if Uncle Rick gets a hold of the DVD player, _A Christmas Story_.”

“Which one is he?”

“The Aunts’ only brother,” Kent answered. “Looks kind of like Richard Gere, if Richard Gere put on about eight stone.”

He nodded; it was a good description. “I thought he was Penny’s husband?”

“No, that’s Uncle Terrence. He and Aunt Penny barely speak to each other,” he explained. “I think they’ve had separate rooms since Piers was born.”

“Sounds happy.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said, nodding sagely. “Blissful. But who would’ve guessed that Aunt Penny didn’t have a happy home life?”

It almost made him feel bad for hating her so much, but only almost.

Jyn was the next to come out of the living room, looking irritated. “How bad was it?” he asked, and she set a bag on the table, pulling out what might have been a dress. “What is that?”

“The height of fashion, apparently,” she drawled. “Take note of the lacework, and the leopard print.”

“Yeesh,” Kent said, frowning in disgust, and reaching out to touch it. “Is it a dress?”

“Skirt,” she replied. “This was the worst of it, but on the plus side, I can probably sell most of it for a pretty good price.”

“Yeah, they buy a lot of designer shit,” Kent mused. “Can’t imagine who’ll buy _that_ , though.”

“This one came from Chet and his girlfriend,” she said, and Cassian choked on his coffee. “He’s graduated to the terrible cologne club next year, I think.”

“Was any of it wearable?” Kent asked, and she sighed, sitting next to Cassian.

“Some of it,” she replied. “A couple of nice sweaters, a dress from your mum that I actually like. But mostly, no.”

“How much is left to open in there?” Cassian asked, and Jyn laid her head down on the table.

“For Bodhi, only a couple. For Garrett, about a dozen.”

“I love how they treat all of their grandchildren the same,” he said evenly, and she tilted her head, smirking, while Kent snorted.

“I’m just glad I’m out, and can go take a bloody nap,” she declared, standing back up, and he hesitated; the words _want company?_ were on his tongue, and for Kent’s sake, he felt like he should say them, but he was still uncomfortably aware of this morning. On the other hand, he’d had about two hours of sleep, and not much more the night before; he was running on nothing but caffeine, and that was no longer really working.

“That sounds like a good idea,” he said instead, and Kent groaned, draining his coffee.

“I concur. Happy fuckin’ Christmas,” he muttered. “New Years will be better.”

Cassian wasn’t sure about that, but decided not to comment on it.

.

To her (more-than-)slight disappointment, this time, she did not wake up with Cassian’s arms around her — it seemed that they were both too tired, waking up in the _exact_ same position they’d fallen asleep in.

By the time they got down to the living room, Uncle Rick had gotten a hold of the DVD player, and so everyone was sort of half-heartedly watching _A Christmas Story_ and drifting in and out of the kitchen, where food was being cooked, or the bar, where some of the more-hardcore members of the family were already drinking “Christmas Mimosas” with apple cider instead of orange juice.

Avoiding the kitchen kept her out of range of the worst of the family, so when Cassian said he needed to make a phone call around three-thirty, she waved it off and didn’t worry too much about it.

Unfortunately, she didn’t factor in that the movie was almost over and everyone intended to _chat_ afterward, about life and the future and all sorts of fun things that she didn’t want to hear or discuss, so she begged out, going upstairs to look for him.

The door to their room was ajar, and through it she could hear a woman’s voice. It took her a moment to realize — right, he was probably talking to his sister, seeing as how it was, you know, Christmas, and she was his only living family. Sure enough, when she poked her head through the doorway, he was sitting at the little desk in front of his laptop, with Sylvia on Skype. She saw Jyn first.

“Jyn!” she said brightly, waving and indicating for Jyn to come closer. Cassian glanced behind him, but didn’t seem bothered by the interruption.

“Oh, I was only… I hadn’t seen Cassian in a while, I, um…” she trailed off, awkwardly unable to explain to Sylvia — who she’d met a couple of times before but didn’t know well — that dealing with her family was about to reach the point of “impossible to accomplish sober” unless Cassian was there as a buffer.

“No, no, no, you have to see this!” she gushed, waving Jyn over with large motions. Sylvia had always struck her as being as extroverted as Cassian (and, to be honest, Jyn) was reserved, the sort of unshakably-upbeat personality that you couldn’t help but love but also sort of hate. “Look!” she moved the camera, so that Jyn could see behind her, where Cassian’s youngest niece was trying (and failing) to walk.

“Oh my God,” Jyn replied, stifling a laugh. “She is _so_ determined.”

“I keep trying to tell her,” Sylvia sighed, “baby girl, those twinkies you got for legs are _not_ gonna hold you up just yet, but she is _so angry_ that Rina can walk and she can’t.”

“Look at her little face,” Jyn said, laughing. “She’s so angry!”

“She takes after her uncle,” Sylvia quipped, with a smirk. “Quiet, bitter, and _way_ too smart. Even looks like him, too. All those rolls.”

“Hey!” Cassian interjected, but Jyn was snickering.

“You were a fat baby?” Jyn asked, and he scowled while Sylvia laughed.

“Oh, _yes_ ,” she crowed. “I have the pictures. I keep waiting for him to get married, they’re gonna be on every table.”

Cassian made a face. “I need to find those and burn them.”

“You will never find them,” Sylvia replied, at the same time that Jyn said, “You would destroy pictures that bring your sister joy?”

He looked at her for a long moment of scrutiny. “So you have baby pictures of Bodhi, then?”

“Yeah, but he also has pictures of my Joan Jett phase, so we’re at a stalemate.”

Both Cassian and Sylvia burst out laughing at that.

“I got lucky,” Sylvia said, smiling still. “Cassian left for college without thinking to go through all the pictures first, so I got rid of everything he could use against me and kept all the blackmail.”

“Because when I left for college, I was thinking of things _other_ than blackmail,” he grumbled, and Sylvia shrugged.

“You and your _honor_ and _priorities_ ,” she said, rolling her eyes dramatically. “Meanwhile, I’m a proud Slytherin. He never stood a chance.”

“That’s not something to be proud of,” Cassian countered, and Jyn glanced at him.

“You don’t strike me as a Harry Potter fan,” she said slowly, and he indicated to the screen.

“I’m not. _She_ is. I had to listen to her talk about it for a full _decade._ ”

Sylvia did not look at all embarrassed or remorseful. “I had the world’s biggest crush on Draco Malfoy,” she said, shrugging like it was nothing. “Posters, cardboard cut-out of him, and a Slytherin sheet set. You’re lying if you say that you didn’t have a crush on anyone in that series.”

Jyn paused, thought about it. “Sirius Black,” she admitted, and Cassian pinched the bridge of his nose. “But I didn’t have posters or anything. I just cried when he died.”

“Really?” Cassian asked, but he seemed more amused than anything else.

“Like you’ve never cried over the death of a fictional character,” Jyn grumbled, but he shook his head.

“No, I have not,” he said, but Sylvia, louder:

“Mufasa!”

Cassian started to speak, then stopped and rolled his eyes, apparently trying not to smile. Jyn glanced at him, but, well…

“Mufasa doesn’t really count,” she admitted, sighing. “Only robots don’t cry when Mufasa dies.”

Sylvia seemed to think about that for a moment, then nodded. “That’s true.”

“Also, I was seven,” he interjected, which Sylvia waved off.

“Anyway, what I was saying earlier,” she said, as though there had been no interruption, “can you hear that in the background?”

Jyn listened, and, faintly, from somewhere on Sylvia’s side of the camera, was a random tinkling noise.

“What is that?” she asked, and Sylvia smiled tightly.

“ _That_ ,” she started, as Cassian began to snicker, “is the sound of the _xylophone_ that my — “ she trailed off into Spanish, the tone of which implied vicious insults “ — brother gave my three-year-old for Christmas.”

“She loves making music,” he said evenly, shrugging.

“I will have revenge,” Sylvia growled, and Cassian raised an eyebrow.

“This _is_ revenge,” he countered. “For all the hell you put me through when we were kids.”

“Oh, please, I was not that bad.”

Cassian didn’t respond, only looked at her, with no expression; Jyn tried to stifle her laughter. After a moment, Sylvia sighed.

“Okay, I was bad,” she amended. “But this is going too far!”

He still didn’t respond or change his expression, and Jyn gave up, dissolving into giggles.

“Fine, I was terrible,” Sylvia went on, crossing her arms and scowling. “But there’s no excuse for giving a three-year-old a xylophone!”

“Aww, but she sounds like she’s having so much fun,” Jyn choked, and Cassian glanced at her, smiling. She recalled, with uncomfortable clarity, waking up in his arms in the middle of the night, and struggled to look away, hoping against all evidence to the contrary that she wasn’t blushing.

“Whose side are you on?” Sylvia grumbled, but couldn’t hide her amusement.

“His,” she admitted, indicating to him and trying not to see his smile widen out of the corner of her eye. “Sorry.”

“I see how it is,” Sylvia said, nodding in mock-betrayal. “You’ve betrayed all of womankind.”

“I’ve heard _way_ too many stories about you,” Jyn replied, smiling, and Sylvia winced.

“I told her once that the best revenge would be if she had a daughter _exactly_ like her,” Cassian drawled.

“Hey, we’ve all been there, haven’t we?” Sylvia asked, with an exaggerated shrug. “Passed-out in a ditch and being dragged into the car by your sibling on the night before graduation. Everyone’s done it, right?”

It was the way the smile dropped off Cassian’s face that clued her in, and she leaned back, fighting back a laugh. “Now, _that’s_ a story I haven’t heard.”

He bit his lip, scowling at his sister. “In my defense, nobody had told me it was going to be a Cinco de Mayo party.”

“Oh, I don’t _blame_ you for mainlining tequila from word one,” Sylvia replied. “I saw the pictures, I would have done the same.”

“How bad was it?” Jyn asked, and Cassian glanced at her.

“A house full of white people in sombreros, butchering the Spanish language and trying to get me to dress up,” he answered, and Jyn cringed. “The guy I rode with said he was going to get all his drinking in early, so I couldn’t turn around and leave. I drank a lot of tequila very fast and tried to walk home after about an hour.”

“The best part was the whole senior class puking in the bathrooms right before the ceremony,” Sylvia added, expression the picture of _schadenfreude_. “As well as the guy who puked in the middle of it.”

“They all thought I was joking when I said I would never speak to any of them again,” Cassian went on coolly. “I was not.”

“Oh, wow,” Jyn said, and Cassian looked at her, smiling a bit.

“I swore off _everything_ about that party,” he said. “Not just the people involved. Jose Cuervo, jello shots, Cinco de Mayo parties hosted by white people, and riding with somebody else to a party.”

“He says that like he’s been to a party since,” Sylvia added, leaning forward, her chin on her palm. “Or before, come to think of it.”

“I have never been a partier,” he said, shrugging. “The only reason I went to that one is because the entire senior class was going, and everyone begged me to show up.”

“The last hurrah before college?” Jyn suggested, and he nodded, rolling his eyes. “Sounds like someone watched too many bad high school movies. Those kinds of parties are always boring as hell.”

Cassian smiled at her, which she determined not to stare at, and Sylvia sighed heavily. “I’m surrounded by nerds,” she groaned. “Parties are _fun_. They are where you meet new people and enjoy the feeling of being alive.”

Jyn pretended to think about that for a moment, before saying dismissively, “Nah, I’m good.”

Cassian snickered, and for some reason, Sylvia smiled. “What time is it there?” she asked. “Something like four, right?”

“Closer to five,” he answered, glancing at the clock, and then at Jyn. “When is dinner?”

“An hour or so,” she replied.

“Are we expected to mingle?”

“Well…” she mused. “Yes, but that doesn’t mean I ever _do_.”

Sylvia snickered, but picked up Sofia and held up one of her hands to wave at the camera. “Say bye-bye to Uncle Cassian and Aunt Jyn,” she said, but of course the nine-month-old just babbled. “That’s baby for _Merry Christmas, Uncle Cassian._ ”

“I understood every word,” he replied, apparently unconcerned with the fact that his sister had referred to her as Sofia’s aunt; she was certain that he’d told Sylvia the whole story and she knew that they weren’t actually together. Sylvia knew. Right?

“I’ll talk to you later,” Sylvia said. “It was nice to see you, Jyn! I’m planning to visit New York for this one’s first birthday, so I’ll see you then, right?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she replied, and Sylvia smiled widely. Cassian blew her a quick kiss, which she returned.

“Bye!” she repeated, and then signed off. The quiet that fell after felt… strange. Awkward.

 _Aunt Jyn._ She didn’t want to call attention to it, but she couldn’t stop thinking about it, and the way he’d been cuddling with her this morning — which, she noted, he had not said a word about, probably assuming that she’d slept through the whole thing — and the way she’d fallen asleep in his arms on the couch, and…

It wasn’t real. She wasn’t Sofia’s aunt, and he was playing a part, and none of this was real.

Jyn winced. “Sorry I jumped in on that,” she said haltingly, and Cassian looked at her, eyebrows raised.

“What?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt, I just… I couldn’t deal with them anymore.”

He stared at her for a moment. “It’s… okay?” he said, like he didn’t understand why she was apologizing.

“I just know you don’t get to talk to your sister much,” she went on, wishing she hadn’t started but now unable to stop. “I didn’t mean to hijack the conversation, I know you care about her, I wasn’t trying to… intrude.”

He still looked at her like she’d grown a second head. “You didn’t,” he said finally, standing up and gesturing to his suitcase. “What’s the dress code for tonight?” he asked.

Jyn opened her mouth to continue, but stopped herself and sighed. “Church clothes,” she replied, and he nodded, pulling an outfit out of his suitcase. She hesitated for another moment, before grabbing an outfit out of her own and all-but fleeing to the bathroom to change.

 _I did not think this plan all the way through_.

She cursed herself the entire time she was changing, and then cursed herself even _more_ when she walked out of the bathroom to see Cassian all dressed-up, in black slacks and a button-down and a vest and looking really, really good, and smiling at her, and _it wasn’t real_.

“This work?” he asked, and she nodded, forcing herself to smile.

“You look good,” she replied, and he gestured to the door, placing a hand on her back as they walked down the hall.

“Not as good as you,” he said lightly. She rolled her eyes, but… nobody was here to hear that except her.

Method acting. Great.

They weren’t quite the last people down to the living room, but close enough to it that everyone was talking and half-drunk, milling around aimlessly while Gran and Aunt Penny and Aunt Lizzie bustled about, getting all of the food ready. She had just enough time to drink half a glass of wine and (falsely) thank Uncle Rick for the frilly white shirt he’d given her, before dinner was ready and they were all gathering to say grace and load up plates and take their places at the tables.

It did not go as well as Christmas Eve had gone.

They made it through the dinner itself with minimal arguing, to the point that Jyn was actually getting relieved that it had all gone so smoothly, but it started to go downhill during the clean-up, when Jyn had to help Aunt Penny — who’d been marinating in wine since at least noon — clear the tables, while Cassian insisted upon doing the dishes, much to Gran’s open delight. She did her best to ignore the looks and the passive-aggressive _hmphs_ that Aunt Penny was throwing her, but her best was not exactly good.

And being alone with Aunt Penny tended to put her on-edge in the worst way.

“Is something wrong?” she demanded, jaw clenched, and Aunt Penny looked her over in distaste.

“You could have dressed more appropriately,” she replied with a delicate sneer, and Jyn looked down at herself — she was wearing a cashmere sweater and a pair of black slacks with dress shoes — in confusion.

“Are you mad?” she asked. “You _gave_ me this sweater.”

“I’m simply pointing out — “ Aunt Penny started, but Jyn was rapidly losing her temper.

“ _How_ am I dressed inappropriately?” she asked, aghast and more than a bit offended.

“Trousers?” she countered, gesturing to Jyn. “For Christmas dinner?”

“I’ve always worn trousers! They're _nice_ trousers!” she snapped, catching an unfortunate amount of attention from the kitchen, as several people started poking their heads into the dining room. “No one’s ever had a problem before!”

“No one’s ever _said_ anything to you about it,” Aunt Penny sneered. “But — “ she paused, hesitated, and Jyn clenched her hands into fists.

“What?” she growled, taking a step forward. “But _what_ , Aunt Penny?”

Aunt Penny’s eyes narrowed. “Well, it’s obvious to anyone that your Cassian can do better,” she said waspishly, and it hit Jyn like a slap to the face. “You’re certainly pretty enough when you put some effort into your appearance, and if you want to keep a man, you ought learn how not to look like such a — a _hag_. And you carry yourself like a man!” she added, but Jyn was barely listening anymore. “Yesterday’s makeup and half-hearted attempts at dress-up do _not_ a woman make.”

To her horror, tears pricked at her eyes and her hands shook. At least a dozen people were watching, silent; she caught sight of Bodhi in the doorway, looking stunned and offended, and determined not to look for Cassian, if he’d heard it, if he —

 _Cassian can do better._  Aunt Penny couldn’t possibly know how tender that nerve was. Maybe she realized she’d gone too far: she was holding herself and looking away like she almost wanted to apologize but was too proud.

Without another word, Jyn whirled around and stormed out of the house.

.

It took him a few seconds to comprehend that someone in Jyn’s family had actually been so incredibly nasty to her, after things had been apparently going well —  _Cassian can do better_ , that woman _dared_ to — he was torn between telling her just where she could stick her bullshit opinions, and following Jyn.

 _Cassian can do better._  His hands curled into fists.

“Do not,” he started in a low voice, as even as he could possibly be, and the entire (stone-silent) room’s attention swung toward him, “use me against her _ever_ again. Do I make myself clear?”

Penny clearly realized she’d gone too far, but confronted with it, was now digging her heels in. “I’m just saying — “ she said in a wavering voice, but Cassian cut her off.

“I _do not care_ what you were just saying,” he snarled. “Don’t ever talk to her like that again.”

There was a lot more that he wanted to say, but this was only going to go further downhill, and Jyn needed someone to follow her right now a lot more than he needed to vent. So instead of continuing the argument, he turned and left the house out the same door Jyn had slammed shut behind her moments ago.

Last night’s snow hadn’t stuck, so there weren’t any footprints to guide him; instead he was left standing in the cold, dim light, trying to guess where she might have gone. Somewhere hidden, probably, out of the way.

Eventually, he found her in the gardens, curled up on a stone bench in front of a fountain. She hadn’t even taken a coat in her — what was it, fury or humiliation? — and his own anger melted away at the sight of her; she had to be freezing.

He shrugged off his coat and draped it around her shoulders, which seemed to startle her. She looked up at him, a fleeting glance, then back to the fountain, drawing his coat tighter around her as he sat down.

It took a moment to figure out something to say; she certainly wasn’t about to start a conversation, and although he’d often dealt with Jyn’s anger and knew, in general, how to handle it, he’d never… no one had ever used _him_ to hurt her before. Bile rose in his throat at the thought of it, the look on her face like she’d just been struck a physical blow.

(He’d gone too easy on Penny.)

“What is her problem?” he asked, half to himself and half to Jyn, who snorted with no mirth.

“Me,” she answered darkly. “She wanted a daughter of her own, instead all she got was a disappointing _hag_ of a niece.”

“She can go fuck herself,” he said, with strong feeling. “You’re not a hag, and you’re not a disappointment.”

“That’s kind of you,” she said, voice deceptively even, and he looked at her, but she was still staring, hard-eyed, at the fountain. Shutting him out.

It stung.

“I mean that,” he said, softer. “Jyn, you’re — “

“Please don’t say ‘fine just the way I am’,” she cut him off, and he fought the urge to cringe. “Mum always tells me that, like it matters.”

He ran a hand through his hair and leaned back on the bench, looking up at the sky. Snow was falling again, but slowly; maybe it would stick tonight. It was goddamned miserable out here, damp and cold and dark, lit only by the small solar lights lining the path through the garden, but he’d have to be forced at gunpoint to leave.

So. She was upset, clearly stinging — something in what Penny had said had cut deep, or more likely, all of it. Hag, she’d repeated, and the dripping disdain of the tone. The implication that she wasn’t good enough for him, especially coupled with the fact that this whole relationship was a facade — or, sort of, sort of a facade and sort of a — it didn’t matter. To _her_ , it was fake, even if he wasn’t sure what it was to him, anymore.

The point was, she was too upset for the truth. It wouldn’t be good enough, would just sound like empty words, a script he was supposed to read from, _especially_ because the relationship wasn’t real.

He glanced at her; she was tense like a coil, ready to snap. _Make her smile_ , he thought. _Say the right thing to lighten the mood, make her laugh_.

“There is always something you could do better,” he said slowly, measuring his words carefully and leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “You…” he started, looking at her and trying to find something that she both knew was a flaw and wasn’t sensitive about. “You could use a new pair of shoes,” he landed on, and she gave him a sidelong glance. “You’ve had the same pair of Converse for as long as I’ve known you. How many times have you glued them back together?”

The ghost of a smile crossed her face. “Twice,” she admitted, a bit begrudgingly. “They’re comfortable.”

“And talkative,” he added, with false helpfulness, and she smirked a little at that. It was progress. “Ah… not waiting until the night before you meet with your adviser to work on your thesis, that’s something,” he went on, and she made a face like she was trying not to smile. “Hmm,” he mused, and then thought of another. “Oh, you could stand to clean your apartment every now and then. I think there’s stuff in your fridge that’s about to invent the wheel.”

It worked; she actually did smile at that, with a stifled laugh like she was trying not to be amused. “I’ll have you know,” she replied primly, “I cleaned out my fridge before I came here.”

“Oh?” he countered, not bothering to hide his surprised smile. “How bad was it?”

She bit her lip and looked at him out of the corner of her eye again. “I found stuff in the back that I’m pretty sure I made for Aiden,” she said, and he tried to remember who that was.

“When was that?” he asked, and she looked away.

“I dated him for about a month, over a year ago,” she admitted in a strained voice, and he snorted.

“Was it in Bodhi’s dishware?” he asked, referring to the fact that she always seemed to make off with her brother’s dishes and forget to return them for months at a time.

She finally laughed at this, nodding and covering her face with both hands.

“So, you ended a budding civilization before coming here,” he said lightly, and she gave up all pretense and laughed openly.

“It was _so_ bad,” she choked. “I’m gonna have to take a flamethrower to the fridge before I move out of that apartment.”

“I’ll help,” he said, and she smiled at that, genuinely. He reached out and brushed a lock of hair behind her ear, and the mood shifted a bit; he was struck with the urge to close the distance between them, and… “Nobody’s perfect,” he said instead, pulling his hand back with difficulty. “But you don’t need to change anything about how you look and act.”

Her smile seemed a little melancholy. “I know it’s stupid to get upset over it,” she sighed, and he shook his head.

“No,” he said. “It isn’t. Anyone would be upset, the way they talk to you. _I’m_ upset with how they talk to you.”

She pulled his coat tighter around herself. “I know I shouldn’t let it get to me,” she said, in a tone of amending her previous statement.

“If people say something enough, you start to believe it,” he replied quietly. “It’s hard to ignore when it’s coming from all sides, and everybody agrees with it but you.”

She took a deep and shaky breath, then let it out slowly and looked at him. “Thank you for coming,” she said finally, and softly, after a long pause. He wasn’t sure if he meant to England in general, or out here tonight, or both.

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” he said, and she scoffed.

“That’s a lie,” she countered. “I’m sure you’d rather be with your sister, or back at Chirrut and Baze’s Christmas dinner.”

The sentence fell out of his mouth before he could catch it and change it into something a little less honest:

“Not without you.”

She stilled for a moment, and he bit his tongue, wishing he could un-say it. It was true — much truer than he wanted to believe — but it probably wasn’t the sort of thing she wanted to hear from a friend. And they were friends, still. Friends.

“I appreciate that,” was all she said in reply. He tried not to wince. “The worst thing about this place is that I’m always alone.”

“Nobody ever tries to stop them?” he asked, and she made a face.

“The only people who would are targets, themselves,” she answered. “Mum usually ends up in at least two screaming matches with them, but it never makes a difference. Dad’s allergic to confrontation. And Bodhi and Kent… if they say too much, Gran and Aunt Penny will start on them, and it all blows up for a bit, but nobody had as many expectations of them,” she added, with delicate and sneering emphasis on _expectations_. “Nothing ever sticks. It always comes back to me, the disappointing granddaughter.”

The words actually hurt, a physical ache in his chest at the… _resignation_ of it.

“Nothing about you is disappointing,” he said, with feeling, and she stilled, again pulling his coat closer around her. “They just want you to be a clone of your Aunt Penny,” he went on. “That’s what they’re criticizing, everything about you that isn’t just like them. If they’re disappointed by you,” he added, leaning forward and trying to catch her eye, “it’s because they aren’t _looking_ at you.”

She finally did meet his eyes at that, and there was a vulnerability there he’d only seen a few times before; she watched him carefully, as though waiting for him to start laughing at her.

“I’m serious,” he murmured. “You are an incredible woman. If anyone says differently, it is _their_ problem, not yours.”

Slowly, hesitantly, a small but sincere smile came over her face. The desire to close the distance between them rose up in his chest again, and he had to look away to stop himself.

( _You’re in denial_ , Bodhi had said. Goddammit.)

He stood and held out a hand to her, which she took, allowing him to help her stand; she paused for a moment, before hugging him tightly (and, he couldn’t fail to notice — although he wished he could — platonically) around the middle.

“Thank you,” she said again. “I know it sucks here, but… I’m glad you came.”

He resisted the urge to kiss her on the forehead, pull her closer, actually _hold_ her, and tried to come up with some excuse for it, but there was nothing.

( _Uncle Cassian and Aunt Jyn_ , Sylvia had said. Shit.)

“It doesn’t,” he replied, somewhat tightly. There wasn’t really a good response to give, but especially not with the increasing weight in his chest. “Let’s get back inside,” he went on, and she nodded.

“You must be freezing,” she said, and managed to get through, “Do you want your — “ before she caught the look on his face, and rolled her eyes. “You’re such a gentleman,” she deadpanned, but sounded a little amused. He tried to smile.

“You’re half my size,” he countered, which was an exaggeration, but not much of one. “And wearing less. I’m fine.”

She seemed content now, walking back up to the house with her arm still wrapped around his waist and her head resting on his shoulder, which was… something. She didn’t seem bothered, didn’t seem to notice the tension he felt all over his body, and it was… disappointing, more than a little bit.

His own words rattled around in his head — _an incredible woman, not without you —_  and settled like lead bars in his stomach.

( _Fuck_.)

.

She heard the screaming as soon as she walked in the door.

“ —  _dare_ you say such a thing!” Mum was shouting, and she spared Cassian a glance of trepidation before walking into the dining room, where Mum and Aunt Penny were having it out, again. Dad, Aunt Tilda, and Bodhi were trying to calm Mum down, while Papa, Gran, and Aunt Lizzie were trying to pull Aunt Penny away. The rest of the family hovered on the sidelines, unwilling to get in the way but unable to ignore the fight.

“Well, if you ever acted like a _mother_ , and taught your child how to act,” Aunt Penny snarled back, and Mum seemed to grow several enraged inches.

“Oh, _I_ don’t act like a mother?” Lyra screamed. “ _You’re_ an unfeeling _bitch!_ What, you think you can get the biggest cut of the inheritance if you join Mum in making everyone else feel like shit?”

“Lyra, please — “ Galen said, physically restraining Mum, at the same time that Gran, offended, cried, “ _Lyra!_ ” Aunt Penny’s eyes flashed and Aunt Lizzie grabbed her by the arm.

“Honestly, why do we always have to fight — “ Aunt Lizzie groaned.

“Unfeeling bitch?” Aunt Penny repeated, drawing herself up in fury.

“ _Unfeeling_ ,” Mum shouted, stepping closer with every word, “ _narcissistic_ , selfish — “

“Mum!” Jyn said loudly, placing herself between the two of them. It was so unexpected that the entire room went silent. “It’s all right.”

“No, it isn’t,” Lyra countered, breathing heavily, eyes alight with fury. But all of Jyn’s anger had drained out of her at the fountain, replaced with the words _I’m upset with how they talk to you_ and _not without you_ and _it’s because they’re not looking at you_ and just… the calmness of having someone else tell her that she had every right to be upset, that it wasn’t pathetic that she let them get to her, that they were wrong about her.

“It’s not worth it,” she amended, and looked around the room, all the stunned faces, and one very relieved Bodhi. “Look, it’s late, we’ve all had too much to drink,” she said. “Let’s just… call it a night. It’s Christmas,” she added softly, and Lyra looked away, blinking back tears. “You said yourself we don’t have many of these Christmases left. We shouldn’t spend them fighting.”

In the ringing silence, she was acutely aware that she was still wearing Cassian’s coat; Cassian, who was still at the doorway, expression unreadable but eyes on her.

“It was _cruel_ ,” Mum said, voice shaking with emotion. “And untrue.”

“Yeah, and?” Jyn replied. “They're just words. They've got exactly as much weight as I give them. Everyone’s angry, nothing's getting solved tonight. Let's just… let it go.”

“Jyn…” Aunt Penny started, from behind her, sounding remorseful, but there was a limit to how reasonable she could be right now.

“Please, Aunt Penny, don't.”

Several moments of horrible, heavy silence passed, before Reid coughed.

“There’s still pie,” he said uncomfortably, “if anyone wants dessert. And we’re gonna be watching _It's a_ _Wonderful_ _Life_ because Andy is a huge sap. If anyone's interested.”

Slowly, awkwardly, the audience dissolved, either to the kitchen or the minibar or the living room. Mum stayed rooted to the spot for a long moment, staring at the floor, before taking a deep breath and, without another word, walking away, in the direction of her room.

“I thought Mum was actually gonna hit her,” Bodhi said quietly. “I've never seen her that mad.”

“She usually worries too much about Jyn,” Dad replied, tone measured but eyes landing on Cassian’s coat. He was slowly walking over to join them. “And it _was_ uncommonly nasty of Penny.”

“I don’t even know how it got that bad so fast,” Jyn muttered, as Cassian reached them. “She was just… looking at me like I was disgusting, and I got angry, and then she got angry, and then…”

“She was drunk,” Bodhi said. “ _Nobody_ in this family can keep their mouths shut when they’re drunk.”

“That’s no excuse,” Cassian interjected, and Dad sighed.

“No,” he replied. “It isn’t. I appreciate that you stuck up for Jyn,” he added, looking at Cassian, and Jyn was a bit confused — did he mean that he’d followed her, or had he said something to Aunt Penny before he left? If he had, he wasn’t giving any indication of it. “I’ll go talk to your mother.”

“Good luck,” Bodhi muttered, and Dad made a face like he knew he’d need it.

“I’m going to bed,” she announced, finally taking off Cassian’s coat (with some reluctance) and handing it back to him. “Maybe we can get through tomorrow without a disaster.”

“I wouldn’t hold out for that,” Bodhi sighed.


	4. act four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the delay, guys, june was a hell of a month. but we're almost there!

darling, so it goes; some things are meant to be

.

.

Cassian couldn’t go to bed.

He could _sleep —_  it had been a long day following two longer days — but he couldn’t go to bed. In the closed room where Jyn was, the bed she was sleeping in, the _knowing_.

Instead, he sat on a little balcony overlooking the estate, trying to figure out when it had happened, when his feelings had changed, and trying to wrestle with the creeping suspicion that they _hadn’t_. There wasn’t a moment, wasn’t a _then_ and a _now_ , no eye-opening revelation, no moment in their friendship when it had suddenly shifted — except for one. One moment, but —

(He’d been so tired that day, drained like now, but a more… suffocating kind of drained, bitter and frustrated, wondering if he shouldn’t have done like his godfather had wanted him to do, and joined the Navy — it would have been easier, for a given definition of the word, but he had never wanted to fight the kind of wars that he would have been sent on, and at any rate, Sylvia had pleaded with him not to, she couldn’t lose her only family… but it would have been a purpose, or… something.

He hardly remembered what he was thinking, except that he had not wanted to be in a stupid physics lab for another goddamn semester.

And his lab partner had clearly not studied, or didn’t know what the hell she was doing, because she kept flipping through the book, until he’d finally asked her what she was looking for. She’d gestured at the board, the formulae, sort of helplessly; he’d studied this before, in biochemistry, which was an unofficial pre-requisite — while the school would _let_ you take biophysics as long as you’d taken both basic Physics and Biology courses, you’d be completely hosed if you hadn’t gotten through at least one semester of biochem, too.

“That is bio _chemistry_ ,” he’d said, with no small amount of disdain. “You won’t find the answer in a _physics_ book.”

She’d seethed at the words and — in retrospect — his tone. “Well, I haven’t _taken_ biochem yet,” she’d replied through gritted teeth, and he’d shrugged.

“So drop this class and take it first. You can’t pass biophysics without biochem, everybody knows that.”

“Nobody told _me_ ,” she’d snapped, then sighed. “But I guess I’ve only been here a year, nobody would've thought to warn me _.”_

“Transfer student?” he’d asked, and she’d shaken her head.

“Sophomore.”

“You’re a sophomore?” he’d replied. “You should _certainly_ drop, then.”

“No,” she’d snapped. “Everybody told me I couldn’t pass this class,” she’d gone on, a fire in her eyes that had taken him off-guard. “But I’m a stubborn little bitch so I’m not gonna drop it. I’m gonna pass if it kills me.”)

— that moment.

The _I’m a stubborn little bitch_ had amused him, he’d actually laughed — the first time any of his classmates had actually managed to make him smile, although he’d never given them much opportunity — and the determination in her eyes, the way her back straightened and jaw set, proud and angry and absolute in her conviction that she would prove everyone wrong.

(“Do you want help?” he’d heard himself asking, almost against his will, but when her whole body relaxed with a sigh of relief, and she said, _god, yes, please —_  he had felt… happy.)

He’d denied all of Bodhi’s pointed questions, and Sylvia’s insistence that he was being blind and stupid, and Luke and Han’s transparent attempts to hook them up — because his feelings for Jyn had always been the same, had never changed.

“There you are.”

Cassian sighed, leaning his forehead against the cold railing as Bodhi walked out onto the balcony and sat next to him, but facing the door. “Didn’t know you were looking for me,” he muttered.

“Well, I thought you’d gone to bed,” he explained. “But Jyn said she hadn’t seen you, and everybody’s still… weird about earlier. How are you doing?”

He stilled. “What does that mean?” he asked, carefully neutral, and Bodhi gestured aimlessly.

“I’ve never seen you that angry before,” he replied. “You really snapped Aunt Penny’s head off.”

“You think I was wrong to?” he challenged, almost itching for a fight, but Bodhi shook his head.

“No,” he said simply. “But you don’t ever get angry like that. The last time I saw you lose your temper, you just got kind of mean and made Jyn’s ex feel like a piece of shit, but _quietly_. I’ve never seen you mad enough to raise your voice.”

He looked away. There wasn’t a good response except the truth, and he wasn’t prepared to admit to Bodhi’s face that they’d all been right, all this time.

But the silence spoke for itself.

“So have you _finally_ accepted it?” Bodhi asked, and Cassian scowled. “Because, honestly, it’s getting kind of annoying. Actually, it got _kind of_ annoying five years ago, we’ve wrapped back around to some kind of zen irritation at this point.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose and bit his tongue to stop a nasty response from coming out.

“I mean, honestly,” Bodhi went on. “Leia told me this whole fake-relationship idea was drastic, but we have tried _everything else_ to get you to open up your eyes and face the _really obvious_ facts. I get that you’re not exactly the most emotionally-intelligent person in the world, but for God’s sake, Cassian. It’s about bloody time.”

He lost control, a little bit, and snapped, “This isn’t _funny_.”

Bodhi froze, then softened. “I’m not — it’s not a joke, I’m only… I mean… this was a long time coming, that’s all.” When Cassian’s only response was to look away, he sighed. “Why are you so upset about it? It’s a good thing.”

“A good thing?” he repeated incredulously, and Bodhi shrugged.

“Yeah,” he replied, like it was obvious. “Why do you think it’s not?”

He couldn’t say it out loud; it would sound stupid, but more than that, it would make it real —  _because this means I’m going to lose her._

One time, Han had used the word “friendzone” around Leia, and she’d launched into a tirade about how awful it was, as a woman, when you thought you had a friend, only to find out that he’d been secretly pining after you the whole time, hoping you’d just open your eyes and spontaneously start seeing him as a romantic partner, because _he_ wanted a relationship.

He was _that_ guy, now. The one who fell in love with his best friend, and… she’d be hurt, betrayed like Leia talked about — and Jyn had agreed with, vehemently. She thought she had a friend, someone she could rely on, someone she could talk to, someone she could joke with and be comfortable around, and… he couldn’t spring the truth on her, but he couldn’t lie about it anymore, either.

“Oh my _god_ ,” Bodhi groaned, running his hands over his face dramatically. “Can we _not_ do this?”

“Do what?” he asked, although he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“This whole Hugh Grant, _oh I’m so tortured but I can’t tell her how I feel because of reasons_ nonsense,” he replied, rolling his eyes, and Cassian’s jaw tightened. “You’re _adults_. Just _talk_ to her.”

He laughed at that, harshly. “Yes, why don’t I?” he said waspishly. “Make this _even_ more humiliating and uncomfortable than it already is, when there’s no escaping it for either of us.”

“Oh my go— she is not going to reject you,” Bodhi snapped, raising his hands like he wanted to strangle Cassian. “All right? I’m her brother, I know this. That is not how it’s going to be.”

“ _How_ do you know?” he challenged, and Bodhi froze, mouth opening and closing several times.

“I can't tell you, I just… do,” he answered lamely, and Cassian nodded slowly, standing up.

“Yeah, that’s convincing,” he muttered, and left.

.

Jyn was awake when the door opened and Cassian finally came in, but she was _trying_ to fall asleep, and so didn’t stir or open her eyes. In spite of how tired she was, she’d already been laying there for over an hour, replaying the whole evening and trying to identify what she was, in fact, feeling: partly the calm after a storm, a measure of pleasant indifference to the whole family’s nonsense, and also a creeping sort of certainty that she didn’t want to think about too much.

Strange, that Cassian had succeeded where every single member of her family had always failed, and managed to make her feel better after one of these fights; strange, that she’d actually listened when he’d spoken, where she usually just disregarded their words as empty platitudes. But Cassian didn’t really _do_ white lies — he could act, and charm the hell out of strangers, and he could fake a smile and play a part, but if she asked for his opinion, she would _get_ it, whether she’d really wanted the truth or not.

So when Cassian said that there was nowhere else he’d rather be — that he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else if it meant leaving her here to deal with them alone — it was the truth. He wasn’t the kind of person to lie to her just to make her feel better; he would have said something else, or he wouldn’t have said it at all. It wasn’t like it had been necessary.

He could have said a lot of other things — she’d been sort of expecting a _you’re right, but this isn’t really as bad as you think_ , or something to the effect — and it wouldn’t have bothered her. But he hadn’t. He’d said, _not without you_ , and those words rattled around in her head and she wasn’t sure how to take them.

He was moving around, but carefully, as though unwilling to wake her, and finally sat on the bed with a nearly-inaudible sigh.

And for a little while — maybe a minute, maybe more — that was all.

She wondered what he was thinking.

Probably that he didn’t sign up for this: the arguments and the emotional rollercoaster and the… _elasticity of the status quo_ , to quote one of Reid’s more profound drunken ramblings. It didn’t matter what you said or how much you fought, the best you’d get was a few days of discomfort and guilty looks, then it would bounce back into being exactly the way it was before. Nothing stuck, nothing changed.

It was irritating to Jyn, and she’d been born into it; for Cassian, being thrown into this with all of a few days’ preparation, it was probably downright infuriating. And it was still a week till the new year.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, startling him out of his reverie; in the darkness, she could barely make him out, even though he was right in front of her.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said softly, as though that answered her question. She sat up on her elbow.

“I wasn’t asleep,” she admitted, wishing she could see his face, even though it rarely told her anything his voice didn't.

“Oh,” was all he said in reply, so after a moment she repeated the question. “It's nothing,” he answered, sounding more tired than anything else. “You should be asleep.”

“I never sleep well here,” she said, feeling strangely awkward, a totally different kind of awkward than the last two nights. This was something heavier, thicker. “It's too cold.”

He shifted a little, moved his hand, but in the dark she couldn't tell what he was doing, and the quiet went on for just a little too long to be meaningless.

“Don’t worry about me, Jyn,” he said finally, with no inflection, completely unreadable, then laid down and shut her out.

.

Whatever had been wrong in the night, Cassian must have gotten over it or at least decided to play like he had, because by morning, he was himself again, at least as far as this whole act could be called “himself”.

Aunt Penny and Mum still weren’t speaking, although it seemed more intentional on Lyra’s part, and more of a general not-wanting-to-speak-to-anyone on Aunt Penny’s. Jyn honestly wondered if she even remembered what, exactly, she’d said; she certainly seemed hungover enough to have blacked out. Uncle Terrence also wasn’t speaking to her, but that wasn’t incredibly rare — he made such a point of apologizing to Jyn on behalf of his wife that it almost made her want to forgive Aunt Penny out of spite.

But mostly, everyone pretended, with a sort of brittle desperation, that nothing happened last night except a normal Christmas dinner.

“It’s like if the Gilded Age was a family,” Kent muttered under his breath, pouring a third cup of coffee and glancing into the dining room, where everyone was being studiously polite and acting happy. “Gold on the surface and rotten at the core.”

“It’s _sad_ ,” Jyn replied, for once not really feeling the roast. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

“No,” he mused. “But it is, and you can’t change them.”

 _Maybe not_ , she thought, _but I don’t have to let them change me_.

Being able to think about it all clearly, without the haze of anger and humiliation and isolation that she usually felt here, had given her some perspective. Kent wasn’t wrong — gold on the surface, rotten at the core — but it was because they _chose_ to be, chose to keep this cycle going.

The day after Christmas always tended to be a bit of a lie-in, even when half the family wasn’t trying to avoid the other half, and so Cassian had taken the opportunity to catch up on sleep and Jyn was sitting curled up on the couch in an out-of-the-way drawing room, half-heartedly reading one of Gran’s ridiculous romance novels.

This one featured a man with long hair and an open, flowing shirt, and was apparently set in the Regency era, but a fantasy version where the Fair Folk were real and had a bizarre infatuation with bland human women who lacked personality and described themselves in uncomfortable detail when looking in the mirror.

She was so engrossed in horrified fascination — her _grandmother_ had bought this book, paid actual money for it, and it featured elves kidnapping a young maiden and one of them falling in love with her and… Jyn really had not needed to know this much about her grandmother’s idea of romance, but she couldn’t _stop_ reading it — that she didn’t notice her mother opening the door.

“There you are,” she said, startling Jyn, and gave the book she was reading a quizzical look. “‘The Fairy Lover’?” she read. “What a classic.”

“It’s terrible but I can’t stop,” Jyn replied. “Listen to this, ‘Marguerite sighed, the Cupid’s Bow of her lips forming a delicate, full “o” which Aemaris couldn’t tear his violet eyes away from.’ Gran paid money for this?”

“Actually, I think Tilda bought that for her as a joke,” Lyra answered with a little smile. “And unwittingly started an obsession. You should see the collection she keeps locked up in her room.”

“No I do not think I should,” she said hastily, and Lyra laughed, but seemed distracted. “What’s up?” she asked, setting the book aside.

“I’m sorry about last night,” Mum sighed, sinking into the seat next to her. “I… you know, Penny used to be much nicer.”

“I’m sure,” Jyn said quietly. “Dad says her bitterness has distilled with age.”

Mum snorted. “That’s certainly true. I think he understands her better than I ever have, but then he's better with people than I am. He’s the one who pointed out that she is, in her own nasty way, trying to help you.”

“ _Help_ me?” she asked, incredulous, and Mum made a face.

“She feels that it’s her fault her husband doesn’t love her,” she replied, with a bitter twist to her mouth. “She thinks that her pregnancies ruined her body and that’s the reason. I’ve tried a dozen times to tell her to just divorce him already, but…”

“That’s stupid,” Jyn muttered. “If all he ever cared about was what she looked like, then he never loved her to begin with.”

“Yes,” Mum said, in a measured tone. “But Penny loves _him_. Always has. A blind man could see how you feel about Cassian,” she went on, and sped up before Jyn could deny it, “and she doesn’t want you to end up where she is, never enough for the man she loves.”

Jyn scowled. “So she gets this across by telling me that I’m not enough for the — “ she caught herself, wincing. “Did that even seem like a good idea at the _time?_ ” she asked instead, and Lyra was kind enough not to comment on the strain in her tone.

“Most mistakes do,” Mum answered, then sighed. “She doesn’t know any way except cruelty to get her points across. We have what Penny has always wanted, you see. But Penny fell in love with a man who _didn’t_ deserve her, and instead of leaving him and finding one who did, she shrunk herself down to fit into his box, and now she’s all alone in it. She always wanted a daughter she could live vicariously through, who would do it right.”

She crossed her arms, glaring at nothing. “You think I should forgive her?”

“No,” Mum replied simply. “Not until she asks you for it and means it. But I do think you should understand her, and learn from her mistakes.”

“Hmm.” She picked at the edge of her shirt with no purpose, then bit her tongue. “Is it really that obvious?” she asked in a very quiet voice, and Lyra gave her a _look_.

“Love, you couldn’t be more obvious if you tattooed it on your forehead.”

Jyn winced, rubbing her face in irritation. “It’s stupid,” she muttered darkly.

“No, it isn’t,” Mum countered. “It’s human. I like him, he’s good for you.”

“He isn’t _interested_ in me,” she snapped in a low voice, to which Mum scoffed.

“Jyn, if he’s acting, then Hollywood is missing its next big star,” she drawled, and Jyn felt the back of her neck heating up.

 _Not without you_.

But Mum would _want_ to believe that, too, wouldn’t she? She wouldn’t want to tell her daughter that the guy she was pining after didn’t feel the same. Lyra _would_ lie to protect Jyn’s heart, both to Jyn and to herself, she had no doubt about that.

“You don’t believe me,” Mum said flatly, and Jyn cringed. “There’s a lot at stake if I’m wrong, isn’t there?” she went on in a soft voice. “You don’t just lose the man you — “ she hesitated, then changed tack at the look on Jyn’s face “ — have a crush on, you lose your best friend. There’s so much to lose. But you know something?”

“What?” she asked, somewhat begrudgingly. It bothered her when her mother saw through her, but then, they were too damn much alike for either of their own good.

“There always is,” Lyra said. “Say you do nothing,” she continued, leaning back into the couch. “Let it die on the vine. He moves on, marries some other girl, drifts away from you. Or maybe he thinks you’re not interested in him, so he moves away to be closer to his sister, and just like that, you’ve lost him anyway.”

The thought was nauseating, like when he’d mentioned — only days ago, but already feeling like a lifetime — that his sister wanted him to move to Chicago. He’d become such a big part of her life, he couldn’t just…

“You have just as much to lose by doing nothing as you do by taking the chance and being wrong,” Lyra added slowly, then sighed. Maybe she could see that Jyn was digging her heels in, as she tended to do when she felt exposed, or maybe she’d run out of things to say. “Think about it, will you?” she said, standing up and giving her a kiss on the forehead, before walking away and leaving Jyn to her thoughts.

.

Cassian spent the whole week between Christmas and New Year's avoiding Bodhi, and not even being subtle about it.

If he could just get through the week, he figured he’d be all right — if he could just get to sleep in his own bed and think about it without her being six inches from him and leaning against him all the time — if he could just get away from it for a little while, he could… do something. He wasn’t sure what, but there _had_ to be something, and he’d be able to think of a solution if he could just _think_.

But Bodhi had not played along with Cassian’s very simple plan. At all.

“Some kind of zen irritation” was apparently an understatement, and he had spent most of the week taking what appeared to be near-malicious glee in forcing them into painfully-romantic situations, such a near-miss with a sprig of mistletoe or — as he’d done now, the day before the big New Year’s Eve party everyone talked about — dragging them out with Reid and Kent and some of the younger kids to look at Christmas lights at a nearby arboretum.

He’d also made an attempt to leave them alone, but the very youngest child, who Bodhi had referred to (with a sort of bad-joke delight that amused only himself) as Little Richard — because he was two, and thus little, and named Richard — had for some reason latched onto Jyn’s leg and had yet to release her.

It hadn’t been Bodhi’s intention, but it was somehow so much worse.

“God, he’s heavy,” she was muttering, shifting the clingy toddler in her arms. “I didn’t think he was at first, but _ugh_.”

“You think he’d let you put him down?” he asked, and she glanced at the kid, then to Cassian. “Good point,” he replied. Two-year-olds in public places tended to get very _vehement_ when either picked up or put down against their will.

He was ridiculously cute, though, with a head full of dark hair in ringlets and a tiny marshmallow-type coat in bright orange, and big brown eyes. He’d been wearing a little hat, too, with a pom-pom, but he’d rebelled against it about five minutes after they’d arrived, yelling _no_ repeatedly in a tiny British accent, and it had ended up stuffed in Jyn’s messenger bag.

He’d already been mistaken for their child twice. Cassian wanted to throttle Bodhi.

“Where did your cousins disappear to?” he asked, somewhat desperately, and Jyn groaned.

“There’s no telling,” she sighed. “Reid was supposed to be in charge of Tom and Will, but he’s terrible with kids, so they’re probably burning down the forest or something.”

“Is Kent better with them?”

“Oh, loads,” she answered, readjusting the toddler so he was on her other shoulder, tiny hand clutching her coat tightly. “That’s why he’s got the twins under control. The real question is where the hell my _brother_ is.”

 _Probably spying on us_ , he thought darkly, _and coming up with some new horror to rain down on me_. On the other hand, it couldn’t be worse than this — walking through the light frost with the lights glowing and carols playing from cleverly-concealed speakers, with Jyn and a very small child who had latched onto her as though she was his mother.

And Jyn was happy, too, removed from the worst of her family — although they’d eased up after the blowout on Christmas, it was the sort of restraint that seemed engineered to call attention to what they _weren’t_ saying — and she was smiling and pointing things out to Richard, who would squeal happily if he liked it and ignore her if he didn’t, and go back to playing with her necklace.

It all left a strange kind of warmth and light in him, like a fire on a cold night: hot and bright to the point of blinding, and making everything else seem that much darker and colder. He kept trying to tell himself that he’d rather have none of it than just a cruel taste, but then she’d smile and —

He wanted this to be real.

There was no one he could _talk to_ about it, because all his friends had been trying to hook them up for years, and Sylvia would laugh herself sick if he went to her and he didn’t really talk to their godfather much anymore, but even if he had, Draven wasn’t exactly the world’s greatest emotional support and had not, as far as Cassian knew, ever married or found anyone he wanted to live with.

He’d never felt the _need_ to confide in people before he’d met Jyn. He’d been an island, like Dameron’s stupid nickname for him, and he hadn’t needed anyone’s support, or at least he hadn’t _thought_ he did, but… there wasn’t any going back to that place. There’d be a Jyn-shaped hole in him.

“You coming?” she called, half-turning to glance back at him, where he'd fallen behind. “I think I hear Reid losing his sanity up ahead.”

He laughed a little, trying to ignore the ache in his chest. “We should go save him.”

“Or at least point and laugh.”

They found Reid around a corner, and she reached out her free hand for him to take, and he did, lacing their fingers together. It just… felt natural. Everything about the week had felt natural, simple, until he’d started thinking about it, but he wasn’t exactly good at willing himself not to think.

He couldn’t _not_ think about her, couldn’t _not_ replay everything they’d been through in the light of this, all the things that had made it so obvious to everyone else but he’d never stopped to consider before. God, even the fact that he was here — he’d come because he wanted to help her, make this easier on her, because he had known that her griping about her family _wasn’t_ just hot air, that they really, seriously bothered her. And the thought of her coming back to New York, upset again and drinking too much again and picking fights again — he never wanted to see it, hadn’t ever since he’d picked up the pattern, and the opportunity to disrupt it had arisen, and so —

He had several good, legitimate reasons to be here, but they boiled down to the one simple fact that he had come here because he loved her, and he hated to see her hurt.

“Get down from there!” Reid yelled into a tree, where the two boys had broken free and decided to try and climb among the lights.

“You let them climb the tree?” Jyn asked.

“I didn’t _let_ them,” Reid snapped. “They’re _fast_.”

“Fast enough to climb a tree while your back is turned?” she challenged, glancing back at Cassian with a look that was both skeptical and asking for backup. He obliged.

“Must have been turned for a while.”

“They wanted hot cocoa,” Reid seethed. “I was getting them hot cocoa because I am a _good cousin_ ,” he went on, dripping irritation on the two words, clearly wishing he had decided to be a bad one, “and then I turned around and they were gone. It’s all Will’s fault, he’s a little shi—”

He cut himself off, glancing at Richard, who was right at the age to start repeating cursewords at inopportune times.

Kent and Bodhi chose that moment to reappear around the nearest bend, holding the twins’ hands, which Reid seemed to take personal offense to. “Why do all children hate me?” he grumbled.

“Because they can tell you hate _them_ ,” Jyn replied.

“I don’t hate them,” he snapped, crossing his arms and scowling into the branches.

“Where are the boys?” Kent asked, joining the group. Cassian indicated to the tree, and Kent looked up, spotted the kids, and utterly failed to restrain his laughter.

“You got them stuck in a tree?” Bodhi asked, incredulous, and Reid growled.

“ _I turned to get them hot cocoa and they bolted_ ,” he replied through gritted teeth.

“Well, I don’t know about you,” Kent said airily, “but I’m calling _not-it_ on climbing the icy tree in the dark.”

Cassian shrugged. “Just leave them,” he said, and everyone looked at him. He raised an eyebrow. “They will come down when they think that we’re about to leave without them,” he explained quietly.

“He’s got a point,” Jyn agreed.

“What if they slip?” Reid insisted, and Jyn winced. “That tree’s iced over, I don’t know how they got up it in the first place.”

“All we have to do is _act_ like we are leaving,” he said. “They’ll come down on their own.”

“This something you know a lot about?” Bodhi asked, glancing at the tree as though unwilling to believe him. Cassian looked at the tree.

“You’ve met my sister, right?” he replied. “I _actually_ left her at the park one time, three blocks later she caught up with me. All they want to do is see how far they can push you.”

He didn’t add on the, _and they’ve learned that they can push Reid very far_.

“Okay,” Reid said slowly, taking a deep breath as if to steel himself. “Fine. Let’s just go, it’s freezing out here,” he went on, loudly.

Sure enough, they’d barely made it fifty feet before the two boys came running up to them.

When she saw the two of them, Jyn looked back at him with a brilliant smile, just for him, and his heart lurched, and… he wondered, for a moment, if maybe Bodhi wasn’t right, after all. Maybe she wouldn’t reject him, maybe she also wanted it to be real, maybe…

Maybe he wouldn't lose her. Maybe it would work out. 

He took her hand and brought it to his lips, and she didn't seem bothered by it. If anything, she seemed happy.

It wasn't just that he _wanted_ it to be real, it  _felt_ real.

He caught up with her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

.

And then, it was the thirty-first. Jyn spent most of the day avoiding the party planner that Gran brought in every year, who was an old friend of the family and always made the place look vaguely like a fifties’ prom, but tasteful. There would be a string quartet and a dance floor that Jyn made a point of never going near, a lot of hors d'oeuvres on tiny plates and a lot more champagne, and more stuffy middle-aged business types than anyone should ever have to endure.

The New Year’s Eve party was always a huge affair, not quite Society by London standards, but definitely all of Papa’s old work friends who had too much money, and Uncle Rick’s office people, upper- and middle-management in some contracting firm. The CEO wouldn’t attend, but several people on the Board certainly did.

The point was, even for her family, there were a lot of people attending this party, and there were definitely Standards To Uphold, which even Jyn dared not shun too openly.

So, she _was_ in a dress, but she’d argued out of heels.

It probably wouldn’t please Aunt Penny, and Gran was certain to sigh over how… lackluster it was, when she had the opportunity to wear something truly stunning, with someone to show off for finally, why she would settle for such a colorless outfit, why she would be so… dull tonight, of all nights, blah blah blah…

The dress had been a gift from her father for her birthday, and she’d had no occasion yet to wear it; it was black and had pockets and glittered like the night sky and it was the rare dress she’d run across that she actually _liked_. So anyone who didn't like it could go screw themselves. She also had not let them touch her hair, instead pulling from Leia’s eternally-changing hairstyles to do it herself, simple and as elegant as she was willing to be.

Next to Gran’s classic designer wardrobe and Garrett’s similarly-attired girlfriend, even she could admit that she looked underdressed, and probably disappointing.

( _They just wanted a clone of your Aunt Penny. If they’re disappointed by you, it’s because they’re not looking at you_.)

Garrett’s girlfriend looked her over, and tilted her head. “Oh, Jyn, if you don’t have anything to wear, you can borrow one of my dresses,” she said, and Jyn couldn’t tell if it was sincere or mocking. “You’re a bit shorter, but we could make one of them fit you just fine! I have this wonderful gold dress, you’d look lovely in it!”

Probably sincere. Jyn tried to smile. “It’s all right,” she replied, and failed to recall the girl’s name. “My dad got me this dress, I haven’t really had anywhere else to wear it yet.”

Gran tittered, and the girlfriend looked up. “That’s a much nicer outfit than what she _usually_ wears to this party. It's quite a lovely dress,” she explained, with just a hint of disdain, subtle enough that Jyn wasn't sure she wasn't imagining it, and a saccharine smile.

The girlfriend at least had the presence to look upset at accidentally calling Jyn out. “I didn’t mean that it isn’t… I just thought this was a more formal party, that’s all,” she said desperately, voice decreasing in volume with every word. “It’s beautiful, I didn’t mean…”

“Thank you,” Jyn replied. “I don’t really keep a lot of formal clothes.”

She escaped the situation before anyone could start again. The girlfriend probably wouldn’t last, and Jyn honestly kind of hoped that she didn’t; she was far too sweet to be trapped with Aunt Penny as a mother-in-law and Garrett as a husband.

The first person she saw when she walked into the parlor was, to her slight disappointment, not Cassian, but rather Galen, whose face lit up when he saw her, and she returned the smile.

“I _knew_ that dress would suit you,” he said happily, holding out a hand to help her down the stairs even though she wasn’t wearing heels and didn’t need it. “My Stardust. You look beautiful,” he went on, putting an arm around her shoulders. “But you know what the most beautiful part is?”

“What is it?” she asked, to humor him.

“You look _happy_.”

“It's a rare sight at this party,” she laughed. “I think half the family thinks I've been replaced with a pod person.”

“It's nice, isn’t it, not being alone,” he said enigmatically, and she glanced at him, but his expression was unreadable.

“I'm not sure how to take that,” she admitted, and he looked away.

“Just a statement of fact,” he replied. “Or did you think no one had noticed that you’re happiest when he's by you?”

“Well, he keeps Gran and Aunt Penny off my back,” she muttered.

“Yes,” Galen mused, “he seems to take it quite personally when they upset you.”

She stopped, crossing her arms and scowling at him, before asking bluntly, “You've spoken to Mum, haven't you?”

“I speak with her often," he said blandly, then shrugged. "I'm simply pointing out what I've seen,” he went on. “He’s welcome to join again, next time.”

“Yeah…” she said, drawing out the syllable with deep suspicion.

 _You're way more obvious about your crush than you think you are_ , Bodhi had told her, and if Bodhi could see it, Galen definitely saw it. And yet Cassian didn't, somehow. But then… he wasn't exactly good with emotions, since he'd spent most of his life practically alone, except for a sister he had little in common with; she had, more than once, had to point out to him that they — his friends — worried about him when he did things like not send the “home safe” message or hitchhike to Chicago to help his sister move out of an ex’s house.

Cassian _wouldn't_ see it. He wouldn't know what to look for.

She couldn't decide if that was a relief or terribly sad.

“Ah, speaking of,” Galen declared, and she barely had a second to compose herself before Cassian was there, looking genuinely pleased to be at the party. He looked good, in a suit and a tie, although he seemed a little uncomfortable, with his hands in his pockets.

It was the first time she’d seen him in a three-piece suit, and it was almost upsetting how handsome he looked in one.

(Relief, she decided. It was _good_ that he couldn’t see it, because he was already uncomfortable and he didn’t need her thirsting after him to make him feel even weirder. And it was _just_ thirst, no matter what Mum tried to imply. He was attractive, she’d always known that, and he looked really really good in a suit and he was her best friend and — )

 _(Not without you_. None of it was necessary, but he’d done it and said it anyway, and everybody said — )

She just… wanted it to be real. That was all. She was looking for reasons to believe that it was real to him because it felt real to her, no matter how determined she was to pretend it wasn’t. But Cassian was playing a part and Cassian was a great actor and Cassian had never shown any interest in her before he was conscripted to act like it. It didn't matter what Mum said, or what Dad thought — he’d never shown any interest in her before, so it didn’t make sense that it _wasn’t_ an act.

She felt like such a fool.

Jyn glanced to where her father should have been, but he had melted away and was now walking her mother down the stairs with an expression of rapt attention. Naturally.

“You look beautiful,” Cassian said quietly, and she tugged at her skirt with some self-consciousness.

“I feel a bit underdressed, honestly,” she replied, looking anywhere except at him.

“Why?” he asked, and she winced, gesturing at the other people in attendance.

“They’re all wearing fancy designer clothes,” she muttered. “I got this as a gift from my dad. Usually, I’m going far enough in the other direction that it doesn’t matter, but this is the nicest dress I own and it’s _nothing_ next to them.”

He paused, looking at her carefully, before shaking his head and leaning closer so that only she could hear him. “You don’t need a thousand-dollar dress to be the most beautiful woman here.”

It sounded sincere, and it was spoken so quietly that nobody else could hear it. It didn’t _sound_ like a line.

 _It’s just a line_ , she told herself, and forced a smile that hopefully didn’t look too desperate.

“I didn’t even know you had a suit,” she said, indicating to him, and he shrugged.

“I got it for my sister’s wedding,” he replied, then looked around curiously. “So what happens at this party?”

“What do you usually do for New Year’s?” she asked, grateful for something to talk about.

(God, she even felt underdressed next to _him_. She’d never _tried_ to fit into this crowd before, so it had never mattered that she didn’t. But next to a very attractive man in a three-piece suit who was getting eyed up by almost every woman and at least a quarter of the men under the age of forty, she felt lackluster, and almost wished she’d taken Garrett’s girlfriend up on the gold dress. As soon as she’d had the thought, though, she remembered the look on her dad’s face when she’d walked in, and determined to shut that stupid little voice up for good.)

“Nothing, honestly,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his head with some discomfort. “New York is wild this time of year, I usually stay in with Kay, and maybe Han and Leia, we watch movies and drink terrible champagne. Last year we didn’t even realize midnight had passed until almost one.”

“That sounds better than this,” she grumbled, linking arms with him in a spirited attempt to act natural. He hesitated, then steered them toward the drinks table, a direction she did not protest whatsoever. “Although I can usually bribe the band into playing Adagio for Zeppelin. A couple of years ago they did a really good version of the Immigrant Song.”

He watched her for a moment, a little surprised, happy smile on his face, before he laughed. “Adagio for Zeppelin?”

“I was proud of that joke, thank you.”

“It was clever.”

The drinks selection at the bar ranged from “champagne” that you could find in any supermarket to top-shelf Champagne from the actual province, but that would be reserved for Gran and Papa themselves, as well as the guests of honor and whoever their favorite child currently was. The bartender was new, though, a younger guy in black who seemed distracted, and poured her a very tall glass of red wine, fingers brushing against hers as he passed the drink over, and a shorter pour for Cassian.

“Was it just me…” she started in a low voice as they walked away, and he shook his head.

“No, it was not.”

“There are women here wearing dresses that cost more than Bodhi’s rent,” she muttered, glancing behind her at the bartender, who was still staring. On the other hand, she thought, most of them hadn’t made it to the drinks yet, if they’d arrived at all.

“So?” Cassian countered. “He’s not looking at the dress.”

He seemed tense, and Jyn, who had reached her personal limit of awkwardness for one week several days ago, elbowed him in the ribs. “You’re not jealous, are you?” she teased, and the look he gave her was a bit calculating. It was almost too long before he replied —

“What if I was?”

She practically heard her mind coming to a screeching halt. He looked serious, and every possible response, from a careless brush-off to an honest answer to incoherent babbling, left her in a flash.

But then it made sense, as Aunt Lizzie appeared behind her in a flurry of taffeta and sparkling wine. “Oh, Jyn, you look so _adorable_ ,” she gushed, taking her by the hand and looking her up and down. “I’ve never seen you in such a cute little dress! The bartender certainly couldn’t take his eyes off you, that’s for sure.” With a wink to Cassian, she went on, “Nothing to worry about, though, love. He’s cute enough but nothing on your man, that’s a fact.”

Jyn stared, at a total loss for words. Aunt Lizzie tended to be a bit of a bottle fairy, and was apparently at the sweet spot of drunkenness where she loved everything and everybody, but it was very early in the evening for her to be in such a state.

“Are you all right, Aunt Lizzie?” she asked, unconsciously stepping away to place Cassian very subtly between her and her currently-manic aunt.

“Oh, I’m simply _lovely_ ,” she replied, with a giggle. “This Champagne is _divine_.”

Ah. That explained her exceptionally good mood — she’d supplanted Aunt Penny this year for a space among the Favored Guests who got to drink the top-shelf. That meant that Aunt Penny would be in a foul mood, but at least she was still avoiding Jyn and Cassian.

“I’m sure it is,” Jyn said faintly, and Aunt Lizzie leaned forward, placing a hand on Jyn’s arm.

“Oh, you should ask Mum if you can have some,” she insisted. “You’re actually wearing a decent dress this year! I’d bet Mum would give you a glass of the good stuff, just for that, and of course for the boy.”

Jyn wasn’t sure if that meant that she would get a glass of Champagne for bringing a boy, or if she meant that Cassian would of course get a glass if Jyn did.

“I’m happy with my drink right now, thanks,” she replied, glancing at Cassian, who was looking at Aunt Lizzie with open dismay.

“Ah, yes,” she said, tapping her nose conspiratorially, “save it up for midnight, that’s my girl.”

With that, she swept off to mingle with other guests; Jyn caught sight of her mother giving her roughly the same look that Jyn had.

“Is she usually like that at this party?” Cassian asked slowly, and Jyn took a deep drink of her wine.

“She’s the favorite child this year,” she said, and when he gave her a confused look, went on: “The good Champagne is reserved for Gran and Papa and whoever they like best. Usually it goes to Aunt Penny but I guess Gran’s still upset at her for making a scene on Christmas.”

He blinked. “Ah,” he replied, in a tone that said _I neither understand that nor want to_.

She was spared from having to return to the point of _what if I was_ by the arrival of Bodhi, looking vaguely hunted, glancing behind him to where Aunt Lizzie was aggressively socializing.

“How drunk _is_ she?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Jyn said. “She told me to ask Gran if I can have some of the good Champagne this year.”

He whistled. “She must have pre-gamed, right?” he suggested, looking at Jyn and then back to Aunt Lizzie. “She’s only been here a half-hour, there’s no way…”

“I would bet that she hasn’t stopped drinking since Christmas Eve,” Cassian said slowly, which both Jyn and Bodhi paused to consider, then nodded.

“True,” he said, at the same time that Jyn muttered, “You’re probably right.”

“So,” Bodhi said brightly, looking past them at the band, who had started playing some generic waltz. “When are you planning to dance?”

“Never,” Jyn replied, lightning-fast. “I have never touched that dance floor before and I am not starting tonight.”

“Cassian?”

She glanced at him, to see the very dark look he was giving her brother, before he said, “I’m not much of a dancer.”

“Aww, come on,” Bodhi insisted, nudging Cassian. “Everyone’ll be expecting it.”

He wasn’t wrong — everyone _would_ be sort of expecting them to get on the dance floor, but this was something that Jyn really felt like she didn’t mind disappointing them over. “They usually do. I don’t care.”

“Even if they play “the Song Remains the Same”?”

“ _Especially_ if,” she replied, rolling her eyes. “I can’t even _imagine_ trying to dance to a string version of that song.”

“I can’t even imagine what that would _sound_ like,” Cassian said, sounding confused. “They would need drums, right?”

“You’d be surprised what they can do,” Jyn said, glancing at them. “They’re old, but I think they were big into prog rock when it was a thing. They’re pretty clever with it when they want to be.”

“Also, I’m pretty sure half of them are stoned off their faces right now,” Bodhi added helpfully. “That probably helps.”

“Don’t tell Piers,” Jyn muttered, and Bodhi laughed.

“Yeah, he sold it to them,” he replied. “In related news, there are special brownies going around some of our generation, so if Kent offers you dessert, don’t take him up on it. Or do, if that’s what you want.”

“Got it,” she said, taking a deep drink of her wine.

“You never answered my question,” Cassian said, and for a second, Jyn’s heart stopped —  _what if I was? —_  and Bodhi looked at Cassian with more attention than Jyn felt was strictly warranted. But the question he repeated was, “What happens at this party?”

“Oh,” she replied, trying not to show her relief; Bodhi looked strangely irritated. “Mostly dancing and drinking. And pretending to be interested in stuffy old men’s stories about business deals.”

“Badly, I might add,” Bodhi cut in, raising an eyebrow at Jyn.

“In my defense, there is nothing interesting about any of them.”

“So, this party is only fun if you’re sixty years old and think poor people simply don’t want to be rich?” Cassian suggested, and Jyn nodded.

“Exactly.”

“It’s also an excuse to dress up and show off,” Bodhi added, then indicated to Cassian. “The suit looks good, by the way. Don’t you think so, Jyn?”

There seemed to be something going on under the surface that Jyn wasn’t quite privy to, judging from the glare Cassian was giving Bodhi now. “Yes,” she answered slowly, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

“And that’s a lovely dress, Jyn,” Bodhi went on. “Dad got you that for your birthday, right?”

“He did.”

“Doesn’t she look pretty, Cassian?”

Jyn drained her glass of wine in one go, although there was honestly a little too much left to do it gracefully. “Oh look I’m out of wine,” she declared. “I should go get more.”

“That sounds like a great idea,” Cassian said darkly.

“Yes,” Bodhi added brightly. “We should all — “

“Not you,” both she and Cassian said at the same time, which — far from being offended — Bodhi laughed at.

“Yeah, that bartender was  _really_  eyeing Jyn up, wasn’t he?” he said, and Jyn scowled. Crap. Escaping Bodhi’s very pointed and not-at-all subtle comments meant going back to the question of _what if I was_ , and Jyn was not prepared for that.

Luckily, the wine she had incautiously chugged was hitting her empty stomach with the force of a train. “Who cares? He’s about nineteen and has bad hair,” she said, waving a hand.

“Actually, maybe you should wait,” Bodhi suggested, and Jyn made a face. “Or eat first.”

“That’s a better idea,” she said, linking arms again with Cassian and making for the food tables.

“That was a _lot_ of wine,” Cassian murmured under his breath, to all appearances oblivious to Bodhi following them.

“I was uncomfortable,” she replied, wincing.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and she wondered if he _just_ meant for how Bodhi was acting. If there was more, though, he didn’t let on.

.

At some point, half the party had shifted outside, to a walled-in deck overlooking the gardens, where someone had set up an elaborate-looking fire pit. It was getting close to midnight, and Jyn had no desire whatsoever to talk to the bartender again, so Cassian had gone to get them both small glasses of champagne for the midnight toast, leaving her with his coat, because her dress, while cute and featuring pockets, did not have sleeves.

She’d almost refused, just because he probably also needed it, but all the chairs by the fire pit had been taken, and going back inside where the stuffy older members of the family were still congregated wasn’t an option, so she’d taken a seat on the wall, and her back was absolutely freezing.

It was a lovely night, though, actually not completely overcast, and between the flickering firelight, mostly-full moon and stars, and glow from the lights in the house, it was a nearly-sickeningly-romantic scene.

She had either had too much alcohol for this, or not _at all_ enough; she was not actually drunk or even tipsy anymore, only sort of buzzed and a little nauseous with anxiety. _It’s all just an act_ , she thought, but then —  _not without you_ , and _what if I was?_ , and…

 _Was_ it just an act?

After they’d managed to shake Bodhi, he’d been at her side for most of the party, hand on the small of her back, playing the part just as completely as he had been the rest of the week, the same amount of casual affection and off-hand compliments about her. It wasn’t any different from the rest of the act, the things she was _sure_ were parts of the act, but then there were those things he’d said for her ears only — like _you don’t need a thousand-dollar dress to be the most beautiful woman here_.

That didn’t sound like a line. It had been too quiet, and — like everything he’d said on Christmas — unnecessary. Cassian wouldn’t have said it if he didn’t think it was true, would he? At least not that quietly, right?

Had he actually seen Aunt Lizzie coming, or had he honestly been suggesting something?

And why had he been glaring at Bodhi?

He showed back up then, right when she was about to drive herself absolutely mad with what-ifs and foolish hope, and she took the glass of champagne with some desperation.

“This looks lighter,” she said conversationally, trying not to wince at the pitch of her voice.

“I told the bartender your grandmother said we could have some of the Veuve Clicquot,” he replied, and she froze, then laughed.

“You _didn’t_ ,” she gasped, and he shrugged.

“He didn’t know any better,” he said, with a small smile. “I feel like we’ve earned it.”

She laughed again, trying to ignore the feeling of his eyes on her. Half the family was out here — not Gran and Papa, but at least most of the cousins and her parents and Aunt Tilda — so it wasn’t like… they _weren’t_ alone, although it sort of felt like it.

“Your dad has good taste,” he said, apropos of nothing, and when she looked at him in confusion, he indicated to her dress. “You said he got you that dress? You _do_ look beautiful.”

Her throat seemed to close up, and she swallowed hard.

It was almost midnight.

“It’s… he used to call me Stardust, when I was little,” she said, taking a sip of the champagne to hide her nerves, although it was technically supposed to be for the toast. “And sometimes still does,” she added, thinking of the beginning of the night, then shook her head a bit. “He said he got it because it made him think of stardust.”

“Stardust,” he said, with a little smile, indicating to the glitter. “I like it.”

She bit back a groan, or a sigh, or a scream of pure, unbridled sexual frustration; someone with a watch started counting down from fifteen, and the balcony — mere seconds ago much too cold, even with Cassian’s coat around her shoulders — was suddenly claustrophobic and suffocating. She could still flee. He had one hand on the wall beside her, but she wasn’t at all trapped in, and she could dart inside for any given reason and feign ignorance of the time.

She could get out of it.

She didn’t move.

It wasn’t… it wouldn’t be anything. A chaste peck, since even if it had been real, nobody wanted to see or be seen making out with anybody when surrounded by their entire extended family. That’s what it was going to be. _Happy New Year_ , a quick peck, and then done. She was building it up way too much in her head, this was stupid.

Still, she couldn’t look him in the face.

“Three,” Reid’s voice, clear and loud from all his years on stage, echoed around the balcony, “two… one! Happy New Year!”

Jyn joined in the cheer, toasting to Cassian and taking a somewhat-deeper drink than was necessary; he reached out and brushed a lock of hair behind her ear, and said, much quieter, “Happy New Year,” before kissing her.

It… was not a quick peck and then done.

It was probably _supposed_ to be, but either she moved or he did or both, and then one of his hands was on the back of her head, pulling her close and messing up her hair, and the other was on her hip, fingers tight like he didn’t want to let go; her hands were fisted in his shirt to keep herself balanced and close the distance between them. It went on _almost_ too long to get away with — just when she was starting to regain the ability to think and register that she was _making out_ with Cassian, he pulled away.

For a moment they stayed still, his forehead touching hers, and in that one moment, she _knew —_  this _was_ real, they _weren’t_ lines, and he was about to kiss her again, without an excuse. Her breath caught in her throat and her eyes met his and —

Cassian stepped away.

The air left her lungs slowly. 

 _Or not_.


	5. act five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's a wrap! many, many thanks to everyone who's followed, liked, commented, and recommended this fic, i hope you like the conclusion!

take my hand, take my whole life, too  
‘cause _I can't help falling in love with you_

.

.

Cassian had seriously fucked up.

For a moment there, he had actually kind of believed Bodhi, because he _wanted_ to believe Bodhi, because she’d taken his breath away in that black dress with that smile and it felt natural and it felt _right_ , and —

The look on her face when he’d complimented her, a deer-in-headlights discomfort and a change of subject; the way she’d gone pale when he’d suggested that he might have been jealous; the way she drained the wine to avoid Bodhi’s comments... He had made her _so_ uncomfortable, and he’d gone too far, and…

He kept replaying that kiss in his mind — she had responded, and _positively_ , and for a few short seconds, he’d forgotten how tense she’d been all night, how withdrawn, and he’d thought, stupidly, that maybe Bodhi was right after all, maybe she was nervous _because_ she was interested, because she’d kissed him like she meant it, like it was real, and…

And then he’d thought: _half her family is out here, she couldn’t stop me if she wanted to_.

It didn’t mean anything that she’d kissed him back, because she couldn’t ruin the act by pushing him away, so she’d responded. And Cassian, like an asshole, had taken advantage of it.

He had no idea how to salvage this one.

He could not crawl into that damn bed with her now.

So he didn’t.

.

Jyn laid awake for a long time, waiting for him to come in so she could maybe bring it up to him, or at least get on with pretending that nothing had happened, but by the time she finally drifted off around three, he still hadn’t come back.

 _Oh_ , she thought, when she woke up several hours later, still alone.

.

Cassian was the first person in the kitchen for breakfast, and the first one to start the coffee, because he still hadn’t slept. He’d crept into the room a little before dawn to get clothes to change into, and Jyn had been curled up in a ball on the bed, facing the door, and he had wanted more than anything to reach out to her, but —

 _God_ , he had fucked up.

She was probably angry, feeling violated and uncomfortable — she had certainly looked tense, even in sleep, the covers drawn high up around her and fingers tight in the blanket.

He had turned away quickly, gotten a change of clothes, and slipped back out of the room without waking her.

“Morning,” a voice said from behind him, and he glanced over to see a deeply-hungover-looking — David? He was pretty sure that it was David, one of the older cousins, with kids of his own. “Rough night?”

“You have no idea,” he replied hollowly, and probably-David groaned.

“I always forget how _awful_ the champagne hangover is,” he sighed, eyeing the still-filling coffee pot with a sort of hunger.

Internally, Cassian thanked him for the ready-made excuse for his state. Awful champagne hangover, nobody would question it.

(Except Jyn. If she even spoke to him at all.)

“No kidding,” he groaned, running a hand over his face, and the two of them stood in silence until the coffee had finished.

.

Jyn found him at breakfast, looking like he hadn’t slept at all, but with everyone there — in varying states of hungover or still-drunk — she couldn’t actually ask him where he’d been and why he had walked away and why he had never come to bed.

He was stiff, uncomfortable, nursing a coffee like it was the Elixir of Life, and part of her wanted to crowd him until he explained himself, but the rest of her was just hurt.

She had really let herself fall for it. _You don’t need a thousand dollar dress to be the most beautiful woman here —_  she’d fallen for it hook, line, and sinker, even though she’d known all along it was an act.

She had wanted _so badly_ to believe that it was real.

(Maybe it was time to accept the fact that it wasn’t just a crush.)

(Maybe it was too late.)

He disappeared again after breakfast, and Jyn busied herself with cleaning up all the dishes, for something to do with her hands and her brain that didn’t require thinking about what was going to happen to them now.

And then of all people, Aunt Penny came to help her, looking… odd. Sad, maybe, as she took up rinsing the pots without fanfare or comment.

“Did you and Cassian have a fight?” she asked quietly, and Jyn stiffened, unwilling to give up any ground to Aunt Penny, but — Mum’s words, about how Aunt Penny was, in her own way, trying to help —

“Don’t worry about it,” she answered, voice harsher than she really meant it to be, but Aunt Penny only sighed.

“Whatever happened, it isn’t worth it,” she said. “If you don’t watch out, your pride will be the ruin of you.” Jyn opened her mouth to snarl some kind of counter to that, but Aunt Penny went on before she could: “Just like me.”

Every nasty response died in her throat. “I’ve never been very much like you,” she muttered instead, and Aunt Penny laughed a little bit, coldly.

“Oh, Jyn,” she sighed, shaking her head and turning to face her. “You’re just like I was when I was young. Hasn’t your Mum told you that? She and I always had too much in common to get along.”

Jyn looked up at her, a bit affronted and a lot uncomfortable.

“But Lyra made the choices I was always too afraid to make,” Aunt Penny went on, something brittle in her voice, “and so Lyra is happy with her life. I tried to be everything Mum wanted in a daughter and everything Terrence wanted in a wife, and so I ended up being nothing that _I_ wanted.”

“Mum says you should just divorce him,” she said quietly, haltingly, because what the hell else was she supposed to say? Aunt Penny looked away, then skipped over the comment entirely.

“You’ve got something rare and you shouldn’t let your pride steal it from you,” she went on rapidly, as though Jyn hadn’t spoken. “That’s what I was too drunk to say on Christmas. He loves you,” she added, and didn’t see Jyn flinch. “Don’t let him get away.”

 _I already have_ , she thought. _Although I don’t know when, or why_.

“ _That’s_ what you were trying to say?” she asked incredulously, completely thrown-off by this remorseful Aunt Penny, actually showing emotions other than disdain and mockery. “By telling me that he could do better?”

“I _did_ say that I was too drunk,” Aunt Penny replied thinly, then sighed again. “And jealous,” she admitted, with some reluctance. “No matter how I tried, Terrence never looked at me that way. And you… dressed-down and hardly wearing makeup and always speaking out… and your man looks at you like you set the stars in the sky.”

Aunt Penny would have no reason to lie, but —

Cassian was _such_ a good actor. He’d had all of them, including Jyn, fooled, just like she’d asked him to do.

That might have been the worst part: she’d _asked_ him to do this.

“You deserve better than him,” Jyn said, and Aunt Penny gave her a very tight, very cynical smile.

“I did, once.”

“They say it’s never too late,” she said, because she had no idea what else to say. It was surreal; Aunt Penny never opened up to her like this, it was completely uncharted sea. But then, things had never gotten _that_ out of hand, or _that_ personally, before.

After a long, awkward silence, Jyn turned back to the dishes and continued to wash them, passing them over to Aunt Penny to rinse, which she did without speaking. Finally, when they were done and Jyn was uncomfortably trying to melt away with as little fuss as possible, Aunt Penny spoke again.

“I _am_ sorry,” she said slowly, with weight. “For what I said on Christmas.”

Jyn paused, looking at her, but she didn’t look back up at Jyn.

 _Not until she apologizes and means it_ , Mum had said. There was still a lot of ground to cover before they could ever have a truly decent aunt-niece relationship, if such a thing was even possible, but…

“I know,” she replied, and tried to make herself form the words _I forgive you_ , but couldn't quite manage it. There was so much bad blood here, between them, it went so much deeper and so much longer than this one fight on this one trip, and — "You know that isn't the only thing."

"I know," Aunt Penny said, very quietly. 

She started to walk away again, but Aunt Penny stopped her, again:

“Jyn,” she said thickly, finally turning to look at her. “I’m glad you’re Lyra’s daughter and not mine.”

With that, Aunt Penny swept out of the room, leaving Jyn alone with the echoes.

.

When they all said their goodbyes, Cassian stood by her, a hand on the small of her back, but for all that he was acting at-ease and comfortable, he wouldn’t look at her and he was practically vibrating with tension.

After leaving the house, he didn’t speak to her at all, and Bodhi was forced to sit — with what looked like extreme displeasure — in the back of the cab between them.

“What the hell happened?” he asked to nobody in particular, and neither of them answered him.

The flight home had been deliberately scheduled to fly through the night, since everyone would be exhausted and want to spend the whole thing asleep anyway, and either Cassian really hadn’t slept the night before or was determined to act like it, because he spent the whole time asleep, or pretending to be, against the window.

“Seriously, Jyn,” Bodhi hissed. “What the hell happened? You two were snogging at the New Year’s party and now you won’t even look at each other.”

She glared at him — of course they’d been seen, she’d known all along that they had probably been seen, but nobody had brought it up and she had been perfectly content to ignore the knowledge.

“Drop it,” she growled, and he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“You two are such idiots.”

“ _Drop it_ ,” she repeated coldly, and he sighed, but did.

When they parted ways at the airport, Cassian gave her a very fleeting smile and an even quicker hug, and she ducked away from her parents’ questioning looks, but Bodhi was absolutely _determined_ , and made a show of joining her in the cab, because “we’re going to practically the same place, right, sis?”

“Okay, _seriously_ ,” he snapped, once they were alone in the cab. Cassian had already left, alone, in one; she remembered the ride here, with him, having foregone sleep so they could make it to the airport in time. It seemed like a long, long time ago. “What the hell happened?”

“I don’t know!” she cried, taking a quick, deep breath. “I don’t know what happened. He kissed me, and then he just — disappeared, I don’t know why.”

Bodhi was quiet for a moment, then shook his head. “That doesn’t — that doesn’t make any sense.”

She looked away, out the window. “Maybe he figured it out,” she muttered, with no question. “And it made him uncomfortable. _More_ than uncomfortable,” she added darkly. “I wasn’t supposed to catch feelings for him, it was stupid. He was acting, and I fell for it, and he pulled away because he isn’t interested and doesn’t want me to be, either.”

“That’s — that is _amazingly, absolutely, completely_ wrong on every front,” Bodhi countered. “I mean, you are _one-hundred-percent_ wrong, it’s almost impressive.”

“It’s fine,” she lied, crossing her arms and glaring out the window like it owed her money. “It’s just a stupid crush, it doesn’t matter.”

Bodhi made a noise of frustration. “Would you stop pretending it's a crush?” he snapped. “You can't just ignore this until it goes away.”

She turned to him, affronted, heat rising to her face, but he looked back at her, chin raised in defiance. “It _is_ a — ” she started to lie, again, and he cut her off.

“You know why all the guys you date are awful?” he challenged, and she glared at him, which he seemed to take as an answer. “Because every last one of them could tell that you'd drop them in a heartbeat for Cassian. It's _that_ obvious. The only guys who will go with you are pricks, because only a prick would see the way you look at Cassian and _not_ _care_.”

She didn't have a comeback, good or otherwise.

“You're making this so much harder than it has to be,” he went on, waving a hand irritably. “Just tell him you're interested. _He_ is.”

“Says who?” she snapped sullenly.

“Says Cassian,” he countered, bringing her up short. “Jesus bloody _Christ_ , Jyn, he's been in love with you for years.”

“He said that?” she asked in a small voice, and Bodhi cringed, which was never a good sign.

“I mean, not in those words,” he admitted, and Jyn deflated. Bodhi had always been trying to hook them up; he'd call just about anything Cassian did evidence, and always had. In Bodhi’s world, at least as it came to Jyn and Cassian, anything friends did for each other was because they were secretly in love, and never because they were, well, friends.

“Right, sure,” she muttered, angry with herself for getting her hopes up. Bodhi reached out as if to throttle her.

“Jyn, I am not making this up, I'm not projecting, I'm not — any of your stupid excuses,” he insisted. “I tried to tell him that you've got the universe’s biggest hard-on for him — “

“You _what?_ ” she snarled, and he jolted backwards, wincing and holding his hands up in supplication.

“I did not actually say that,” he replied, a bit meekly. “Because you'd kill me. But he didn't believe me, anyway. You two are tied for the world’s stubbornest fool award.”

She turned back to the window, glaring at the street.

 _It isn’t a crush_.

But if it was a crush, it was so much easier to get over, to just set aside and ignore — admitting that it went deeper than that meant admitting that things were never going to be the same.

All the nights she’d crashed on his couch after having one too many, all the nights he’d invited them all over for dinner and wine, all the text messages he’d send her, pictures of things that he thought might make her smile (which were almost always spot-on). All the conversations that went deep into the night, arguing over what the best movie ever made was, all the times she’d relied on him to have her back and he’d never, ever let her down.

All the times she’d had to explain to him that people cared about him, all the times he’d talked her down, all the times she’d had to push him to interact with other people, all the times he’d smoothed things over when she’d screwed them up.

All of it, gone.

Because she’d fallen for it.

Because somewhere along the way, a long time before Christmas had forced it into the light, she had fallen for _him_.

“Jyn…” Bodhi sighed, but she shook her head, shutting him out.

.

Cassian’s phone buzzed three times before he picked it up.

The first was a message from Kay, who apparently lacked the ability or inclination to walk down the hall to speak to him in person: _I hear you made it back in one piece. Did you mean to slam the door hard enough to knock the lamp off the table?_

He resisted the urge to respond with something nasty, and instead settled for, _It didn’t break_.

The second was a message from Bodhi: _Seriously, you and Jyn need to fucking talk to each other_.

He didn’t respond to that one at all.

The third was a message from Jyn: _Make it home all right?_

He stared at it for a long time. After the whole week, after everything, she was still checking up to make sure he was okay. She always _did_ get irritated when he didn’t send a message saying he’d made it home safe, always chided him for forgetting that they cared about what happened to him, always —

 _Yes_ , he replied.

After what seemed like entirely too long, his phone buzzed again, and he tried not to hope that it would be something that solved everything, which it wasn’t.

 _Good_ , she responded, and then shortly after that, another message popped up: _Are you angry with me?_

His chest felt hollowed out.

He both wanted and desperately did _not_ want to hear her voice. He wanted to go back in time, either to before this stupid trip, when they were just close friends and he consistently ignored the small, creeping suspicion that it was something else, or back to the arboretum, in the cold and the colored lights, when he’d thought for a few bright moments that maybe she actually did feel the same.

 _No_ , he replied, and left it at that.

She didn’t text him back.

.

By the time the jet lag had passed and she was starting to settle back into a regular routine, she was already losing her patience with the silent treatment.

“I just don’t understand what I did wrong,” she snapped over a late lunch she really didn’t want, with a Leia who seemed bizarrely irritated. “ _He_ kissed _me_ , and then he just — ghosts on me, like — like I don’t even matter.”

“Cassian is allergic to emotions,” Leia replied, rolling her eyes and stabbing her chopsticks into her noodles with significant force. “He doesn’t know what to do with them.”

“So, what, that makes it all right? He just — “ she waved a hand angrily “ — doesn’t know how to deal with my — “ she winced “ — crush, and — “

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Jyn,” Leia cut her off. “You do not _honestly_ believe that this is just a crush, do you?”

Jyn cringed and looked away.

“It’s easier if it’s just a crush,” she muttered, and Leia scoffed.

“Well, it isn’t,” she replied sharply. “You’ve been in love with him for years. God, you were crushing on him the day I met him, and you’ve only gone downhill from there.”

Jyn picked at her food aimlessly, feeling nauseous. “So, what do I do?” she asked, with an attempt at flippancy. “‘Hey, sorry, buddy, I know we’ve been friends for years but actually I’m in love with you, hope that’s not a problem’?”

Leia stared at her for a moment like she’d grown another head. “Yes, actually,” she said bluntly. “I promise you, that is what he wants you to do.”

“Oh, come on — ” she started, but Leia cut her off again.

“Jyn, this is why he’s ghosting on you,” she snapped. “Because he’s _stupidly_ in love with you, but he thinks you don’t feel the same, and he doesn’t know how to deal with it. Just go the fuck over to his apartment, tell him the truth, and bang him already.”

She glared, tried to come up with a response, failed, and settled on: “Who the hell still uses the word bang?”

“Would you rather I used something more graphic? I’ve been with Han for a year, I have _plenty_ to choose from.”

“No, that’s all right,” she said hastily, and an uncomfortable silence fell, in which she gave up on her food entirely. She wanted to ask about the _he’s stupidly in love with you_ bit, but Leia was like Bodhi, in that she’d been convinced of their deep and abiding love for each other from day one, and would believe that even if was currently marrying someone else.

Granted, Leia didn’t harp on it the way Bodhi did, but she just sort of always treated them as a unit, _Jyn-and-Cassian_ , and when drunk, would insist that Cassian wanted her so badly he didn’t know what to do with it, but Jyn had learned a long time ago that drunk-Leia was a goddamned liar.

“You’re hung up on thinking he doesn’t feel the same, aren’t you?” Leia deadpanned, and Jyn resisted the urge to throw something at her. “You know what? You don’t believe me, ask Chirrut. He’s practically psychic.”

“Chirrut?” she repeated incredulously. “You mean the blind man who read my palm and said that I would fall in love with a dark-eyed Hispanic man whose name rhymed with “Jassian”? _That_ Chirrut? He _definitely_ sounds like an unbiased third party.”

“Well, he wasn’t wrong.”

Jyn glared at Leia, but the seed of another thought had sprouted — Chirrut, no, but _Baze_.

Baze Malbus was the bluntest person in the world, and much more perceptive than anyone gave him credit for. And he had the most experience out of any of them in love, and he never, ever lied.

Baze would tell her the truth. Bodhi, Leia, her mother, Chirrut — all of them would lie, because all of them wanted her to be happy. All of them _wanted_ to believe that Cassian felt the same, but Baze would give her the truth, unvarnished and whole, whether or not it was what she wanted to hear.

In her whole life, Baze and Cassian were the only people she had ever genuinely trusted to do that, and one of them was on the verge of not being in her life anymore.

The thought twisted in her gut.

“Or — I just had this amazing idea — “ Leia went on, with an air of false revelation, as she tossed a few bills down on the table and stood up, “ — why don’t you ask… him?”

Jyn scowled, pulling her coat on with frustration.

“I’m gonna go talk to Baze,” she snapped, and Leia started to reply, then caught herself.

“Actually, yeah, that’s a good idea.”

Jyn made a face. “You actually agree with me?”

“Yeah,” Leia replied. “Surprised me, too. But you’ll _believe_ Baze. You’re convinced all the rest of us are idiots.”

“I am not — “

“Yes, you are,” Leia snapped. “You think none of us really know.”

“I think all of you would lie to me, and to yourselves,” she countered, stopping on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. “I think all of you _want_ to see it.”

Leia watched her for a moment, shaking her head slowly.

“You know you’re not the only thing in our lives, right?” she snapped, tugging her coat tighter around her. “Except for Bodhi, maybe, we don’t obsess over your love life. The only reason we bring it up is because the sexual tension is _really fucking annoying_.”

Jyn froze, a little surprised and a _lot_ embarrassed. “I didn’t mean… God, I’m sorry,” she muttered, shoving her hands in her pockets. “Didn’t mean to assume you cared.”

“Whatever,” Leia replied irritably. “Just deal with it like a grown-up. I’ve tried to be understanding and patient, but this has gotten _really_ old.”

“Oh, you’re one to talk,” she snapped back. “You swore up and down that you hated Han until Luke walked in on the two of you shagging. I don’t want to hear it from you.”

Leia glared at her, but there was no way she could deny the point. She wasn’t sure why Leia was in such a foul mood, but it certainly didn’t help Jyn’s already-rising anxiety.

“Fine,” Leia sighed. “Go talk to Baze, then go talk to Cassian. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Sure,” she muttered, trying to shake the feeling like her life was slowly crumbling away from her.

.

Baze didn’t ask why she was at his door, only opened it and let her in, offering a cup of coffee with a gesture to the mug in his hand. Jyn declined, because the coffee that Baze essentially lived on could strip paint on a good day and dissolve a spoon on a bad one (and at any rate, it was getting late), and took a somewhat-uncomfortable seat at the table.

“Where’s Chirrut?” she asked, partly because she didn’t want Chirrut to get involved in the conversation, and partly because she sort of _did_. Chirrut would probably tease her, and he’d definitely ask her (again) when she planned to join him for guided meditation like she kept swearing she would do soon — but he’d also probably give her really, really good advice.

On the other hand, he wouldn’t let Baze tell her the truth, if it was unpleasant. He’d try to soften the blow, because Chirrut was a bigger bleeding-heart than Jyn was.

“Teaching,” Baze replied evenly, and she nodded a few times, less to process the information than to steel herself up.

“Do _you_ think Cassian is in love with me?” she asked in a rush, vaguely hating herself for it, and Baze paused, looking up at her over his mug.

“Yes,” he said, startling her, and then, after a painful moment of silence: “Clearly.”

“ _Clearly?_ ” she repeated, dumbfounded.

Baze just stared at her for another long moment, as though waiting for her to start laughing. When she didn’t, he closed his eyes, apparently praying for patience. “Chirrut will be back soon,” he said. “He can help you.”

“ _You_ can help me,” she implored, and he finally sat down across from her.

“What do you want to hear, little sister?” he asked.

She froze, looking at him and meeting his eyes. The answer — well, what she’d _wanted_ to hear was what he’d _said_ , but she didn’t expect or believe it. She’d come here to have Baze let her down in his blunt-but-not-unkind way, and give her pointers on how to salvage her friendship with Cassian in light of this… stupidness.

“I…” she started uncertainly, cringing and glancing away. “I wanted you to tell me how to stop being in love with someone,” she admitted, and he snorted into his coffee.

“You thought _I_ could tell you that?” he replied incredulously, and she tried to glare at him, but he shook his head. “If I knew how to do that, you think I’d be with that fool?”

In spite of herself, she laughed.

“Love is not a thing you control,” Baze went on, after a moment. “You only embrace it or kill it.”

“Kill it?” she asked, and he nodded, sipping his coffee. “How do you kill love?”

“Leave,” he answered. “Or drive him away. Don't answer when he calls, don't see him, make new friends. Carve him out of your life like a cancer. Move on.”

That sounded… exactly like what Cassian had been doing since they got back to New York. He hadn't responded to any of her text messages, or at least not with any substance, and had begged out of meeting up with the group with the excuse of having a major project to work on — not that he’d said so _to_ her, but he’d told Han, who had passed the message along, even though Jyn was the one who had invited him.

He was clearly —  _painfully_ so — avoiding her, still. She'd been trying to convince herself that he was just uncomfortable, or maybe he really was busy, but… that sounded much more accurate: _carving her out of his life like a cancer_.

She flinched a little at the thought.

“I don't want to lose him,” she said in a small voice, and Baze shrugged.

“So don't,” he replied, like it was easy.  “You're no coward, Jyn Erso.”

She looked up at Baze and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Maybe it could be that easy. Mostly all that was standing in the way was fear of losing him, and… well, she’d lost him anyway, if she didn’t do anything. If she was going to lose him whether she confronted him or not, she may as well do it.

“Okay,” she said. “I'm trusting you.”

“Good,” he replied. “It's time.”

She gave a short, almost-harsh laugh. “Everyone else says it's long _past_ time,” she muttered, but he shook his head.

“Things happen at their own speed,” he said. “The heart can’t be rushed.”

She looked at him suspiciously. “That sounded like Chirrut,” she said, and he scowled into his coffee.

“You live with someone long enough and you begin to bleed into each other,” he replied. “But I'll be more careful of it in the future.”

Jyn tried to smile. “Yeah, but you love him.”

“For some reason,” he grumbled, and she stood up, taking a deep breath.

“Wish me luck,” she said, pulling her coat back on, but Baze shook his head.

“You don’t need it.”

.

Cassian's roommate was many things, most of them — despite Jyn’s insistence otherwise — positive. He paid rent in full every month before it was due, he washed dishes immediately after using them, he never brought people over, he kept things neat, and he kept to himself. They'd been assigned as roommates in freshman year, and clicked well. Kay was, generally speaking, as good a roommate as anyone could hope for, and a genuinely good and loyal friend.

He was just shit at advice.

“Your infatuation with Jyn has been apparent since the day you met her,” he was saying. “I was under the impression that she had turned you down.”

“What?” he snapped, but Kay didn't look up from his laptop. “You knew?”

“The change in your behavior was marked and consistent,” he replied, frowning at something on the screen. “As well as highly visible.”

“Not to her,” he said, with some trepidation, and Kay raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, by definition, she cannot see how you look at her when she's not watching _,_ and she doesn't know how you act when she isn't there. I don't believe anyone has pointed this out to her, although it should be obvious, still. Perhaps she simply doesn’t want to know.”

Cassian flinched; he’d been thinking the same thing, and _really_ had not needed it put in so many words.

“You think she doesn’t see it because she doesn’t want to know,” he repeated, almost a question, but not quite. “Doesn’t want her best friend to come onto her.”

“Well, that would certainly — “ Kay started, then looked up and saw Cassian’s face. “I have made a mistake,” he said slowly.

“Have you?”

“Yes,” he answered, almost robotically. “That… likely isn’t the case. You didn’t see it in your own… actions, so it… follows that perhaps she didn’t, either.”

“Kay, you’re a _fucking awful_ liar,” he snapped, and Kay winced, closing his laptop and appearing to shrink into the couch.

“There are many possible reasons for her actions,” he said hastily. “Perhaps if you spoke to her — “ he went on, but Cassian cut him off.

“I can’t do this to her,” he said, running both hands through his hair. "I don't know what to say, I don't know how to fix this."

“Well, you have to say _something_ ,” Kay countered. “A plausible lie, if nothing else. She’s going to become suspicious soon, if she hasn’t already.”

 _She has already_ , he thought, glancing at his phone, sitting on the coffee table facedown. _I didn’t realize you had a project due_ , she’d said last, after he’d begged out of everyone getting together tomorrow night. _You should have told me_. That had been ten hours ago, and he still hadn’t responded, which was probably as good as admitting outright that it wasn’t true.

Or, well — it hadn’t been a lie, in the sense that he _did_ have a major project that he technically needed to work on, but it _was_ a lie in the sense that he’d only agreed to come in and work on it after she’d invited him out. 

He cursed under his breath and stared hard at the floor.

“You can’t ignore her indefinitely,” Kay went on, then paused. “Well… you could, actually, but I imagine she would want little to do with you after a long enough absence.”

Cassian buried his face in both of his hands, torn between “I need a freaking drink” and “the only thing that could make me feel even more shitty than I already do is whiskey.”

“What, just ignore her until she stops — “ he couldn’t finish the sentence out loud. _Ignore her until she stops trying. Until she gives up on you. Finally, after six years, gives up on you_.

Jyn had always given him one more chance than he really deserved, whenever he thought he’d ruined things, spoken too harshly or brushed their friendship off without thinking because he didn’t really know how to exist in someone else’s life — when someone else was mad at him, she was the one who had always come and told him why.

Even though he’d been nothing but ice and sharp edges when she met him, she had never been intimidated or put-off by it; even though he’d never really learned how to not be alone, she always gave him another chance to apologize and try again.

How long would it take, he wondered? How many times would he have to push her away before she stayed gone?

The thought made him sick; the thought that it might already be too late made him even sicker.

But he didn’t know how to explain it to her. He’d tried — laid awake at night trying to come up with a way to put it all into words, composed ridiculously-long text messages that he erased before sending, because he couldn’t stop picturing the discomfort on her face when he’d complimented her, the withdrawal, the silence.

“Do you think you could survive losing her?” Kay asked, in a strange sort of tone, and he looked up to where his roommate — and oldest friend — was watching him warily.

 _No_ , he thought. _Or at least, not as the same person_.

“I don’t want to,” he admitted slowly.

“You should tell her that.”

“You said yourself she doesn’t want to hear it.”

Three things happened in the next moment: Kay winced again, started to speak, then seemed to think the better of it, and closed his mouth; Cassian decided on the whiskey; and someone knocked on the door, hard and impatient.

They both looked up.

Jyn had always given him one more chance than he deserved.

“I wonder who that could be,” Kay said flatly, gathering up his laptop and ducking out of the room. Cassian glared after him, but he paused at the doorway, hesitated for a moment, then glanced back at him. “Good luck.”

Alone in the room, Cassian ran his hand through his hair again and walked to the door, looking through the peephole even though he already knew — and sure enough, there she was, face drawn and arms crossed. He leaned against the door for a moment and let out a long, slow breath before opening it.

.

The silence was the worst, she thought. Waiting to see if he'd even open the door —  _of course he'll open the door_ , she told herself, but doubted. They had been friends for a long time, and he had never knowingly ignored her, never looked to find her at his doorstep and _not_ opened the door, but then… they'd never kissed before, either, or shared a bed, or —

After what seemed like an eternity (but was probably more like a minute), the door opened and he stepped aside, unspeaking and unreadable, but not unwelcoming.

She didn't really know what to make of it.

The door closed behind her and he walked — not quite _away_ , but he did put the half-wall separating the kitchen and living room in-between them, and wasn't looking at her.

_You’re no coward, Jyn Erso._

She took a deep breath. “You’re avoiding me,” she said bluntly, and a moment passed before he responded —

“Yes.”

The air left her lungs slowly; he hadn’t looked up, but she turned to face him, jaw set, her own anxiety making her irritable, and his avoidance making her upset. “I think you owe me more than that,” she said, tension snapping through her voice like lightning, and he glanced up finally, running his hand through his already-messy hair. “You’ve been my best friend for years, you’re the most important person in my life, you can’t just _ghost_ on me like this!”

He flinched and sighed, leaning heavily against the counter and staring at it like the answers would leap out of it and present themselves to him.

“I am not ghosting on you,” he said, and she scoffed, a bit appalled at the blatant lie.

“Yes, you _damn_ well are!” she countered. “You send me one-word replies and tell someone else you can’t come out when I’m the one who invited you and you won’t respond when I bring it up! You’re ghosting on me. That’s what ghosting is, you’re just — just _ignoring_ me,” she went on, trying not to choke on the words and, worse, what they meant.

 _Clearly_ , Baze had said, and Baze could be trusted. He saw things as they were, and he never lied. If Baze said that Cassian was in love with her, then he was.

So, why had he ignored her all week? There was only one other option.

 _Carving her out of his life like a cancer —_  he’d decided that this wasn’t worth it. Wasn’t worth taking the chance on. He’d chosen to kill it. Or else everyone was wrong.

But _Baze_ had said it. She had decided to trust Baze when she’d come here. Baze would know, and he wouldn’t lie.

If she told herself that enough, she might even believe it.

“What do you want from me?” she demanded, stepping forward, with a game, if failing, attempt at keeping her voice even, and he looked up again, finally meeting her eyes.

“You mean you really don’t know?” he challenged, with a harsh laugh that might have been pained. “Everyone —  _total strangers_ know what I want, and _you_ don’t?”

“You’re impossible to read!”

“No, I am not,” he snapped. “I am not that hard to read, Jyn, you just don’t want to know.”

The words hit her with physical force, and rising anger met crushing fear like the fist of an angry god. “What don’t I want to know, Cassian?” she countered, just shy of a snarl. “Why don’t you tell me what _I_ don’t want to know?”

His jaw tightened. “That isn’t what I — “ he started, but she cut him off, storming forward until she was opposite the half-wall from him, slamming her hands down on the counter and leaning forward aggressively.

“No, _this_ is your problem!” she shouted. “You keep thinking you know what I want, so you just decide —  _God!_ ” she cried, throwing her hands up in frustration. “You could at least ask me on a date before you break up with me!”

The ringing silence that fell after that was almost worse than the silence after she’d knocked on his door; he looked up and met her eyes, and he looked — guarded, uncertain, and… it wasn’t really fair. Cassian had spent his whole life alone, it wasn’t fair to expect him to get it right every time. He’d gotten a lot better about it in the past few years, but he was still, at the core, someone who had grown up too fast and too young and didn’t quite know how to connect to people.

She’d never blamed him for it before. It probably wasn’t fair to blame him for it now.

But it _hurt_.

And — heaven help her, angry tears were pricking at her eyes. It hurt —  _carving her out of his life like a cancer —_  this, after _not without you_ , after _what if I was_ , after he’d followed her out in the freezing cold and given her his coat and talked her down, after — he couldn’t just _walk away_.

He couldn’t just decide to kill it without ever trying.

Her hands curled into fists, and she took in a sharp and ragged breath.

“Jyn…” he started slowly, and the look on his face was stricken, dismayed, and she wanted to scream.

“After everything — “ she choked, angry at herself for the word breaking in her throat, “ — you can’t just —  _decide_ that I’m not worth it without even _telling_ me.”

“Jyn, no,” he said hastily, finally coming around the little half-wall to face her. “No, that is — that isn’t why I — I didn’t mean to hurt you — “

“Yes, you did!” she countered, trying without success to take in a calming breath. “You wanted me out of your life, you — “

“No, no,” he urged, raw desperation in his voice, and he took her by the shoulders as if to steady her or stop her from running or ground himself or something else she didn’t even know. “I didn’t know what to say, I… Jyn…”

The really awful thing about the dam breaking was that it was so hard to get it all back under control. She was crying because she was angry and then she was angry because she was crying, and she wanted very little more than to crawl under a rock and hide.

“I have never wanted you out of my life,” he said quietly, and the moment seemed to crystallize; she had covered her face with both hands, trying to get her breathing back under control. “Never. I…” he started, then paused, letting out a low sigh and seeming to deflate. “Jyn, I’ve always been yours,” he went on, the words seeming almost forced-out.

Behind her shaking hands, she opened her eyes; time seemed to stop.

 _I’ve always been yours — not without you —_  and, and before that, before Christmas, all the things she’d thought she’d lost — all the times he’d come for her and chosen her over other people and how he always answered when she called and always opened the door when she knocked and followed her when she stormed out and fixed things she’d messed up and — all the way back to the start, when she’d bitten off more than she could chew with an upper-level class and he’d gotten her out of the mess her own stubborn pride had gotten her into.

 _I’ve always been yours_.

“Just tell me what you want,” he said, each word sounding more difficult to say than the one before it.

_You’re making this so much harder than it has to be._

Everyone had said it, but none of them had really understood that she was never, ever going to believe it, until it came directly from him.

She let her hands fall away from her face, glanced up to meet his eyes for a split-second, then dropped her gaze to his shoulder. “You,” she admitted in a small voice. “You’re all I’ve ever wanted.”

There was a long and heavy silence.

She finally looked up, and he looked — surprised, but softly. And tired.

“I fell for it,” she went on quietly. “I wanted it to be real, and I thought you did, too. I thought you were going to kiss me again, and I don’t know why you didn’t.”

He ran his thumb over her cheek, that same strange sort of surprise on his face, like he had never considered this possibility. “You couldn’t stop me,” he replied, and she tilted her head in confusion. “Your whole family was there, you couldn’t say no.”

“I wasn’t going to say no,” she said. “I was _never_ going to say no.”

He was quiet for a long moment, before saying, with some discomfort, “Oh.”

There was a moment of silence, and then Jyn — emotions already strained beyond the breaking point — burst out laughing.

Not giggles, or snickering, or anything composed or controlled, but full-on, doubled-over laughing until she cried, mostly out of relief.

“Oh my _god_ ,” she choked through the hysterical laughter. “We are _such_ idiots.”

“Seriously?” he asked, but couldn’t hide his own amusement. He shook his head slowly, snickering. “We’ll never live it down.”

“ _Ever_ ,” she gasped, finally managing to catch her breath as she looked up and met his eyes, and… he — Aunt Penny, of all people, had called the expression on his face — looked at her like she set the stars in the sky.

 _Oh,_ she thought. That was what everyone meant, when they said it was obvious.

She grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him down to kiss her.

.

“So where's the boy?” Han asked, a bit too casual, leaning against the bar next to her. “Kinda figured we wouldn't see you two for a week.”

Jyn blinked, and narrowed her eyes at him, deliberately not knowing what he meant. “He should be here soon,” she said, and left it at that.

“Uh-huh,” he said. “Needed to get back his place, take a shower, that sort of thing?”

“He wasn't at my place to begin with,” she replied primly.

“Needed to catch up on sleep, then?” Luke suggested from her other side, and she turned her glare to him.

“He actually _had_ promised to go into work today,” she snapped. _They_ didn't have to know that he'd ignored three calls from his boss before finally agreeing to show up for an hour or two. Jyn felt a deep, mulish determination to give absolutely no details to anyone who had ever tried to hook them up.

That left her with… her mother, basically, and maybe her academic adviser (but only maybe), and the day she discussed her sex life with either of them would be the day she ate lava.

It was none of their damn business.

“Huh,” Han said, as though trying to find the lie. “I didn't… hear wrong, did I?” he asked slowly, as though backing away from a possibly-starving lion, and she rolled her eyes.

“No, you didn't,” she sighed.

“Oh, good,” he replied, and then: “We have a question.”

“I am not answering anything Captain Smarm asks me today,” Jyn deadpanned, but Luke leaned in as Han gasped in mock affront.

“No, but this is really, really important,” Luke said earnestly. “ _Really_ important.”

“What is it?” she asked slowly, a bit suspicious.

“When you and Cassian got together,” he started, then caught himself a bit, apparently noticing the look on her face, “ — no we don’t need details — but when you actually, officially got together — was it before or after midnight?”

She blinked. “Seriously?”

“Seriously, Erso,” Han said. “ _Really_ important.”

“I…” she began, confused, then made a face. “I don’t know, I wasn’t looking at the clock.”

“Okay, when you went over there, then,” Luke amended. “Was it, like, ten o’clock at night, or more like midnight, or…”

She gaped at him. “It… was seven or eight, I think?”

“Eight o’clock,” Luke repeated, a strange eagerness in his tone. “So, just so we’re clear about this, you and Cassian _officially_ got together on January 5th.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“God _dammit!_ ” Han yelled, slamming his hand down on the bar, as Luke let out a whoop. “You couldn’t have waited four more hours?”

“January 5th!” Luke shouted, raising his arms in celebration and turning to their sprawling group, many of whom groaned. “Everybody pay up!”

“You had a betting pool on when we would get together?” Jyn said flatly, and Han shrugged.

“Of course we had a betting pool, you thought we didn’t have a betting pool? Fifty dollars a head, eleven people jumped in on it altogether.”

“Eleven — you mean Luke just made _five hundred dollars_ off of us?” she cried. Han scowled.

“Yeah, and if you’d waited four more hours, _I_ would have.”

Her jaw dropped gently open as she looked over to the table, where everyone was begrudgingly handing Luke bills, although Leia looked particularly angry about it, slamming the money into her brother’s hand and scowling as she stormed over to the bar.

“I can’t believe you had a betting pool,” Jyn said when she got there, and Leia glared.

“I can’t believe you didn’t get your act together after your big New Year’s party,” she snapped back, and Han snorted. “Bodhi said you two made out, but _no_ , that didn’t count.”

“Leia pounced on the first,” Han commented, seeming much less irritated now that Leia had picked up the slack on the righteous indignation. “She just _knew_ she had it in the bag.”

“Luke and his _gut feeling_ ,” she was muttering darkly, arms crossed.

“Is that why you were so nasty yesterday?” Jyn asked, and Leia growled.

“Yes! I would be five hundred dollars richer if you and Cassian weren’t so damn _dense_.”

“Five hundred dollars?” Jyn repeated, still aghast at that. “How did you even _find_ eleven people to go in on that?”

“Well,” Han started, ticking them off his fingers, “Bodhi started it — “ Jyn narrowed her eyes, _of course he bloody well did_ “ — and then Luke and Leia got in on it, and then I did, and then Shara and Kes each put in, and then Chirrut put in on it but Baze didn’t, then Cassian’s sister joined up around Christmas, and then Rebo, at the bar — “ he indicated to the owner of the bar, who was pulling money out of the drawer with a look of irritation, “ — and then Luke convinced Biggs and Wedge to throw in, make it an even five hundred to whoever won.”

“You’re joking,” she said, but… no, this was exactly like them. Leia stiffened as Luke rejoined them at the bar, throwing an arm around Han’s shoulders with a pointed smile, until Han sighed heavily and pulled out his wallet. “All right,” Jyn went on brightly, “well, I think that means Luke gets to buy everyone the next round.”

Luke froze, working his mouth a bit like he knew good and damn well that Jyn could — and would, if even slightly pressed — demand that he split his haul with her and Cassian, since, after all, they technically were the reason he won it. Han smirked, and Leia looked delighted.

“Ye-e-e-es,” he said slowly. “Yes, that seems fair. Next round is on me,” he went on, seeming to come to terms with it as he took the fifty from Han.

“For the whole table,” she filled in for him, and he sighed.

“Yes, okay, for the whole table.”

“Did you hear that?” she called out loudly, catching everyone’s attention. “Luke’s buying the next round!”

A chorus of cheers greeted this announcement, and Luke sighed, nodding slowly. “Well played, Jyn,” he said gamely, and she smiled, patting him on the back as he went back to the table. Han waited until he was out of earshot, then leaned over to Leia.

“How can we concoct a fifty-dollar drink?” he asked, and the smile that lit up her face at that was almost evil.

“I don’t know, but I’m sure Max will help us,” she replied, motioning for the bartender to join them. Jyn shook her head, but was distracted from their quest by Cassian finally getting there and joining them, wrapping an arm around her waist and kissing her temple, and all of her irritation with her asshole friends evaporated.

“What are they doing?”

“Luke won the betting pool, so he’s buying the next round and they’re making the most expensive drink they can come up with,” she replied, and he closed his eyes, letting out a long breath.

“Betting pool?”

“Yes.”

“Did your brother or my sister start it?”

“My brother,” she replied. “But your sister put it on it. Around Christmas, according to Han.”

“Of _course_ she did.”

“I’m still not convinced that we shouldn’t demand he split it with us three ways,” she said, crossing her arms. “He won five hundred dollars off us.”

Cassian started to say something, but seemed derailed by the last bit — “ _Five hundred dollars?_ ”

“That’s what _I_ said.”

He blinked several times, as though trying to process that. “I _was_ going to say something about how I’ve got the only prize I wanted, but…”

“Right?” she said, shaking her head. “I think he owes us a really good bottle of wine.”

“Yes, he does.”

He smiled at her, and her stomach flipped and caught in her throat.

“Eh,” she mused, leaning into his shoulder. “Maybe a decent bottle. No reason to be petty,” she went on, a little bit louder, pointed at Han and Leia, who clearly heard her — both hesitated, looked at each other, then apparently came to a mutual and unspoken decision to be as goddamned petty as it was humanly possible to be.

Cassian snickered, fingers tightening on her hip, and said, very quietly, so only she could hear it — “I love you.”

Jyn smiled and kissed him.


End file.
